Legendary
by WhatsMyNomDePlume
Summary: COMPLETE. Preternaturally irresistible, devastatingly charming Edward Cullen seems to have some strange power over the females in Forks…and Bella is scared she might know just what it is.M for language & naughty fun. Part mystery, part drama, all Edward.
1. Prologue: The

**Summary**: Preternaturally irresistible, devastatingly charming Edward Cullen seems to have some strange power over the females in Forks… and Bella Swan is scared she might know just what it is. M for suggestive and sexual language. AU or AH. we'll see.

**A/n:** All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended. However, I, under the penname listed above, do own this story, plot and its variations. I prefer it not to be plagiarized and thank you in advance.

**

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Prologue**

A Few Months Earlier…

Bella Swan was a neophyte to the world of men but desperate to get her toes (among other things) wet. Her mother was always flitting from one man to another, telling Bella how wonderful it was to feel wanted, desired by someone. Bella hadn't been able to stop thinking of men and sex since her mother had sat her down last week to give her "the talk." Only Renee Higginbotham's version was to hand Bella an article from the New York Times that claimed up to 50% of women never climaxed from sex and as many as 10% never had an orgasm at all. This terrified Bella far more than the actual prospect of sex and she had spent days thinking about it. It was so unfair. Guys always got theirs; why should girls be any different?

Granted, Bella didn't really know what she was talking about. She was still inexperienced but had recently come into her looks. She was attractive but not in the staggering, commanding manner of her friend, Rosalie. Nor could her beauty be compared to that of aesthetic, artistic Alice, the final member of their trio. She was in the upper echelon of the "girl next door" bracket, due to her slim figure, soft brown eyes and seraphic face. She knew she was pretty but there was nothing interesting about her looks, nothing that would catch the attention of someone like Rick Eleazar or… Jasper Whitlock, who was currently sitting on top of his table, pulling on the hem of Kate Beckett's top to reveal more cleavage. She swatted him away playfully and ineffectually and he leered at her, a knowing grin on his face. They shared a moment of pulsing, heated eye contact before clasping hands and leaving study hall together.

Bella sighed. It wasn't as if she liked Jasper. She didn't even know him. But ever since Renee had told her those statistics, she'd been appraising every guy in school to see whether the girls he would be with would ever fall into that 10%. Jasper Whitlock? Unlikely. His success rate was probably 110%. She could imagine that he knew what he was doing, could imagine that right now he and Kate were probably heading to the projector room behind the gym…

"And—I mean, what topic do you want to do, Bella? Bella?" Edward followed Bella's gaze and saw the departing figures of Jasper and Kate. He sighed. Every time Bella and Edward had met to do their project in the last few days, her head had been in the clouds. She was always staring at other couples or guys around the school as if trying to decipher some secret. Especially at Jasper. As a result, they had fallen way behind on their Myths and Legends project in History. "Bella!"

"What? Oh I'm sorry, Edward. My head has been all over the place lately," she said. She looked at the boy in front of her as he used his index finger to push his glasses up his nose. The frames were so thick and the lens so small she could barely see his eyes. His fingernail was chewed and bitten and as he exhaled, a dull piece of his odd-colored hair flew up and then rested back on the corner edge of his mouth. Oh, he was definitely one of the 10% guys. That is, if he had ever even been with a girl. Which led Bella to think of another one of her problems. She had the sneaking suspicion that Edward was going to ask her out.

It wasn't that Bella didn't like Edward. No, he was nice and polite but there was nothing beyond that exterior. He hardly ever spoke more than he needed to, didn't really have any friends and always chose to work alone on projects. Unless group work was mandatory, like in this one.

"So what do we want to research, Edward?" she asked.

"That's what I was just asking you, Bella," he replied. His tone was flat, his voice kind but lacking any real personality. She flipped through the library book she had in her hands and laughed when she opened to a particular chapter.

"What? What is it?" Edward asked. Bella looked at him. She didn't know whether he would find it amusing as well, but hell, she had never even heard him speak about anything outside of school. It might be fun to see his reaction.

"How do you feel about researching the legends of incubi and succubae?" she said, giggling. She watched as he turned a poached salmon pink, and a light sheen of sweat stole over his forehead.

"Umm… aren't, uhhh, aren't those the… _sex_ demons?" he asked, stuttering over the words and nearly whispering the word 'sex.' Bella giggled.

"Yeah. Here, let me look it up," she said, observing Edward over the screen of her laptop as she typed in the search engine. "Wikipedia says 'An incubus is a demon in male form supposed to lie upon sleepers, especially women, in order to have sexual intercourse with them, according to a number of mythological and legendary traditions. Its female counterpart is the succubus.' Oh my." She giggled again and saw that Edward had turned a rather… puce color.

"You want to research… that?" he asked.

"It's an option. I mean, it is fascinating. It says incubi were sometimes blamed for pregnancies out of wedlock. Can you imagine? I'm sorry I'm lazy and couldn't make my guy wear a condom but I'm going to blame it on a demon that seduced me… in my sleep!" she said, laughing. Edward cracked a nervous smile. "It says here that these legends were often used to explain 'nocturnal emissions.' Well, at least they're not part of the 10%."

"What?"

"Oh… I mean," Bella took a deep breath. She _had_ to stop thinking about that article. It was spilling out into everything. Then again, Edward's reaction to the incubi suggestion was rather amusing. She wondered what his reaction would be if she imparted some of Renee's wisdom. Feeling bold, she asked, "Did you know that up to 10% of women never orgasm in their entire life?"

Edward slowly but surely turned scarlet. "Uhh… what?"

"It's true. I uh, read it in the New York Times. Can you imagine never feeling that in your entire life?" she looked at him pointedly.

"Oh… uh, I didn't know. Umm, I didn't know that was something that was a…. priority to you. At this point," Edward stuttered. It was Bella's turn to flush.

"Oh, I mean… it's not. I'm still a… I was just thinking about it. How it's unfair that guys always… but girls don't necessarily… you know," she said. Her thoughts were still much bolder at this point than she was. But Edward was looking at her strangely, as if to wonder why she was discussing sex with _him_ when they never really talked about anything but school.

Suddenly, she realized what a mistake it had been bringing up this topic. Why the hell was she talking about sex and… _orgasms_ with a boy who she suspected liked her and in whom she had no interest! Stupid, stupid Bella. Oh god. He was totally going to get the wrong idea unless she did damage control. She summoned up her inner Rosalie.

"You better be damn sure that when I…, "she faltered. Right now, she was Bellalie, an awkward, insensible mix of bold and shy. Still, she had to say this, lest Edward get the wrong idea. "It'll be with someone who knows what he's doing. Absolutely. I am not going to be one of those '10%ers'. I will make sure that my guy knows how to…. do things." Damn it, she was just Bella. No Rosalie in her. She dared to peek at Edward to see his reaction.

"And how… how would you know if the guy knew how to… do…_ things_," Edward asked. Damn it, he was looking for an in. Bella had to nip this in the bud.

"Girls talk, Edward," she said, bitchily eyeing him up and down. This was all Rosalie. It was slightly cruel, but no crueler than having to say no if he asked her out. Which she would have to. Despite her bravado, she meant what she was saying. She really did want someone who knew what they were doing, since she so clearly didn't. Edward had deflated slightly but recovered.

"And this has what to do with our project?" he asked, warily.

"Oh nothing… just that, according to these legends at least with the incubus, you're guaranteed a good time, y'know? You'd have to believe that a… _sex_ demon would know what he was doing," she said, trying to lighten the conversation. "Anyway, we don't have to do that. It was just an idea." He nodded in agreement.

She exhaled in relief that she had manage to deflect that whole situation. At least now Edward knew that she wouldn't ever say yes to him. At least now, Edward knew what she was thinking.

The only thing problem was she had no idea what Edward was thinking. What crazy, crazy things Edward was thinking.

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thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter 1: Man

A/n: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended. However, I, under the penname listed above, do own this story, plot and its variations. I prefer it not to be plagiarized and thank you in advance.

This chapter is very short just to set the stage, but ones following will be longer,

A Volvo XC-90 full of adoration and Edward for quothme, who turns my kal-el into superman.

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**Chapter One**

James Dean leather jacket? Check.

Long-legged, tight-assed strut? Check.

Cock-sure, wicked glint in his eye? Check.

Around these parts—meaning Forks, Port Angeles and even up near Hoquiam— Edward Cullen had become a legend, a supernatural phenomenon, an unstoppable force.

High school boys had pimples, body odor and no control over their own bodies. Despite attending Forks High, Edward Cullen was not a high school boy. His skin was smooth and clean. He smelt like midnight and bed sheets. And he had utter control over every female who met him.

He would turn his smile on his prey of choice and that was it. Girls and women alike would follow him into his house or his car or the hall closet next to the office. They would emerge after an hour, sometimes two, sometimes (for the lucky ones) even an entire night and look at the world through new eyes. Edward Cullen was kryptonite, Godiva truffles and the perfect little black dress personified. There was no one's type he wasn't, no heart he couldn't flutter with a look, no panty he couldn't drop with a smile.

There were Casanovas before him. Don Juans after him. But nobody could match Edward Cullen.

There was something about him… something _different_.

When Edward Cullen first moved back to Forks at the start of his sophomore year, there was nothing special about him. Nothing to separate him from his peers or to indicate the panjandrum of infamy he would soon command. His unique amber-gold eyes shone bright but went unnoticed under the heavy black frames he wore. His sharp cheekbones and angular jaw were preternatural and premature in someone his age, but couldn't be seen due to the curtain of thick, auburn hair he hid his face under. That thick, auburn hair was overlong and stringy. He hadn't reached his full height yet, a fact further coupled by his slight hunch. He was as invisible as his never-present parents and barely mattered to anyone.

He went away for the following summer.

And _he_ came back.

[-]

Ray Ban wayfarers.

All black ensemble.

Quirked left eyebrow.

On the first day of school that September, he slid out of his shiny, silver Volvo and shut the door, aiming the remote over his shoulder to lock the car. It was as though the next thirty seconds occurred in slow motion. With every confident, swaggering step he took, the clustered cliques he passed fell silent, mid-sentence. All attention was directed towards this… being.

By the middle of first period, it had been confirmed the bronze Adonis from the morning was also the creature formerly known as "Edward? Who?" Surprise swirled through the student body. The few who had known him in his previous incarnation could not reconcile the information with the masterpiece they had seen earlier in the morning.

Where was the quiet, stooped loner from the previous year? The lackluster, bowl cut hair? The ill-fitting, unfashionable clothing? Instead, the new and improved Edward Cullen spoke in a deep, rich drawl. He met gazes with a smirk and a lift of his brow. He raised his pale, sinewy forearms and answered questions correctly. His golden eyes twinkled and his smile blinded.

When women looked at him now, they didn't just see Edward Cullen. In French, they saw his tongue roll smoothly around his 'r's. They imagined how that tongue would feel in their mouth, teasing and rolling and tasting. In gym, they saw the hard slates of his stomach rippling seismically as he tugged the hem of his t-shirt up to wipe sweat of his forehead and the protruding 'v' of his pelvic bone as his shorts rode low. They imagined how that hard stomach would feel against their hand and imagined the simultaneous pleasure and pain of those hipbones sliding against their own. At lunch, they saw that he never sat with the same people two days in a row but never was for want of company. They imagined how they could be the girl whose shoulders he had his arm around, whose thigh his hand was slowly inching up.

No one knew anything about him. He was a blank slate for them to draw their fantasies upon. They saw what they wanted to see and he let them.

There was so much more that they didn't see.

[-]

_Close your eyes and surrender to your darkest dreams,__  
__Purge your thoughts of the life you knew before.  
_

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A/N: thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 2: The

**A/N:** All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended. However, I, under the penname listed above, do own this story, plot and its variations. I prefer it not to be plagiarized and thank you in advance.

As always, thank you to quothme, beta and beyond. She is the Frasier to my Niles, or in an allusion that is actually relevant to her, the Alfred Pennyworth to my Richard Grayson (I'm not anywhere as cool as Bruce Wayne yet so I get sidekick status). Want snark and superheroes? Try her Type 0- Negative (.net/s/5038080/1/). Want pathos and pain (but in a fabulous way!), then try her Awake in the Infinite Cold (.net/s/5440286/1/).

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**Chapter Two**

His first victim was Carmen.

She was a senior, some said the most beautiful senior, and wore a purity ring prominently on her fourth finger. Not even recently graduated prom king and quarterback Rick Eleazar had been able to get into anything more than her living room, for tea with her father. She was the ultimate unattainable girl.

Before low-rise jeans and bellybutton rings, before varsity football and wet dreams, before puberty and sex but after the Cullens' first move to Forks, Edward used to love to play on the swings. At nine years old, he was bright-smiled and angel-eyed, inelegant hair flopping as he ran around. He had many, many friends—a space cowboy named Maurice, a talking dog called Sir Scratchawan, a cat called Chairman Meow, the list went on and on. His parents were rarely ever home and left their son to his own devices, which quickly manifested into a deep loneliness otherwise betrayed by his happy disposition. He spent most of his time wishing for friends. And then one day, at the swings, he made one.

Even with a lisp and a permanently runny nose, ten-year-old Carmen Weber was a beautiful girl. No matter what day of the week, she was dressed in her Sunday best, and even through winter, she wore pretty dresses and knee socks. She smiled politely, always led grace at dinner and said please and thank you. She rarely talked to anyone aside from her little sister, Angela, due to her strict father. But Reverend Weber knew how much his daughter liked the swings, so once a week, he'd let her run to the park down the street to play on the swings for half an hour.

Edward and Carmen would have contests to swing as high as possible. Edward would always fling himself off at the apogee of his ride, in a bungling sort of long jump, and land in the sandbox. He always shouted at Carmen to join him, but she never did, in fear of getting her clothes dirty and angering her father. But she watched every time, as a joyful, euphoric Edward sliced through the air, in the closest approximation of flying her young mind could imagine. And one day, she let go and flew too, shrieking with elation.

Unable to control her body the way Edward had, she barreled into his chest as he turned to face her and landed on top of him. She couldn't stop giggling, her shoulders shaking and torso convulsing. Edward, too, was consumed by a joyful chortle, pleased that he finally had someone to share his laughter with. And quite as suddenly as she had just let go of the chains, because Carmen was impulsive that day, she leaned down and kissed Edward, a first for both. His eyes went wide, since they were both too young to know to close their eyes, and she stayed stock still, since she was too naïve to know to move her lips. She pulled back away from his mouth and they both continued laughing convulsively, two children who could care less they had just kissed or were currently sprawled on top of each other in a sandbox.

The Reverend cared, however, when he found his daughter giggling with that strange, no-good Cullen boy—their family didn't even come to Christmas mass!—and lying on top of him, nonetheless. Reverend Weber knew that it didn't mean anything, that it was the simple, innocent play of two young children, but he couldn't let this slide. Today, it would be the swings and giggles; in five years, it would be bedroom windows and sex. He knew what he had to do and packed Carmen off to a private Catholic school, leaving Edward friendless. When Carmen returned midway high school, she was in her current avatar of straight arrow, virgin princess, untouchable to anyone—including non-entity Edward, the only boy she had ever kissed.

But now, after just one day with this new face and body, Edward Cullen was the king of high school. The previous day, he had flirted with many of the girls at Forks High. During French, he had conjugated (verbs) with Lauren Mallory. Jessica Stanley and he had worked through problems dealing with heat, fluids and pressure in Physics. When he had gone into the office to change his schedule, the secretary, Ms. Young hadn't recognized him.

"It's me, Ms. Young. Edward," he said, voice fluttering through the air.

"Oh! Oh my, Edward! Look… look at you," she said, faltering as she did just that. A sublime smile was on his face, sated and devilish. "You look so… different." She swallowed intentionally, hoping to stave off some of the drool she felt forming. "Very handsome." She could say that, right? Never mind that he was only five years younger than her, and maybe more attractive than all the other good-looking men from here to Port Angeles put together. She could appreciate the picture without smudging it with her fingerprints.

"Thanks, Ms. Young," he replied. He spoke differently too, voice low and smoothly shifting from word to word like he was bowing a cello rather than speaking. "Don't worry. I'm not that different." Ms. Young arched a finely plucked eyebrow. "Really. Just think of it as… I was asleep before. And now, the potential in me has awoken." He grinned and held up a piece of paper. "Thanks for the new schedule." He shot one last toe-curling, breath-halting smirk at her before turning and being accosted by a small body.

Bella looked up, shocked to see gravity-defying auburn hair and twinkling gold eyes looking down at her. She had heard about Edward, of course, but she didn't expect to see him so soon, looking as good—maybe even better—as everyone had said.

"Hello Bella," he said quietly. His velour voice was soft but carried. "It's nice to see you again." He wasn't smiling and the intensity in his burning gaze chilled her skin and warmed her insides simultaneously, leaving her feeling disconcerted.

"Hi, Edward. You look…" Gorgeous. Sensational. Downright yummy. "… different."

Edward tilted his head and stared into the distance, seemingly pondering Bella's words. "I _am_ different," he mused a few seconds later, almost to himself. He looked straight down into Bella's brown eyes, which were wide and unbelieving. Leaning in, he said, "By the way, Bella…" His voice went even lower and softer as he got closer. "I'm in your Biology class now. Turns out, I already learned everything I had to in Physics. See you in 6th period." His breath brushed the tip of her ear, so cool that it actually felt like he touched her. Before she could register whether he had or not, he was out of the office and sight.

Edward strode through the hall, long legs taking him far. He walked regally, head held high, eyes appraising but not meeting anyone else's, gliding through the sea of students as it parted for him like he was Moses. It was just after 4th period and nearly the entire school was in the main hall to socialize before lunch. Normally abuzz with giggles, shrieks and grunts, that day there was nothing but a low drone as everyone watched a former worker approach the queen bee.

The entire hall held their breath.

"Excuse me," he said, voice like honey-glazed velvet. He stood behind Carmen, still towering over her considerable stature and placed his mouth a few inches from her ear. She whipped around in surprise, leaving their faces so close that she could smell the pinch of mint on his breath, see the dusting of gold in his eyes. He remained right where he was and she lost her balance as the nearness of him registered. He pressed his hand into the small of her back to steady her, leaving it there so that his arm draped around her waist. "Hello Carmen."

"Hi Edward," she replied, as if she had not ignored him for the last eight years. She waved her companions away and turned her full attention towards Edward. "It's been a while."

His hand was splayed along her lower back, tapping out a hypnotic rhythm. Eeny, meeny, miny, moe. Eeny, his index finger, at the center; meeny, his middle finger, curving to graze the small of her back; miny, his ring finger drumming against the slope that curved into her ass. And moe, his pinky brushing ever so lightly, up and down, along the very top of her derriere.

He smiled at her and took one step closer. "It has, Carmen. I've missed you." His voice was like rolling boil of water, rumbling and low, just on the precipice of spilling over.

Looking up at Edward, Carmen felt like she was in a daze, as if someone had filled her lungs with something that wasn't quite air and her feet were planted on something that wasn't quite the ground. She didn't quite know what was happening, but he was moving closer towards her, almost in slow motion, and she was not backing away. His sultry smirk quirked upwards and the gold of his eyes seemed to lighten. In that moment, she saw her old friend Edward from the swings again and knew what was going to happen.

"And for ten years," he murmured. His eyes flicked between her lips and her gaze. "I've just wanted to reminisce." With that, in the middle of the crowded hallway, the new and improved Edward Cullen and till-then-untouched Carmen Weber had their second first kiss.

They were in a crowded hallway, filled with their peers. She hadn't even let Rick kiss her on the _cheek_, even after he'd met her father. She was Carmen Weber, and she was saving herself—every part of her self—for something better than an impatient high school boy. She knew all these things, but these thoughts abandoned her mind as she breathed in the nearness of Edward, smelling like musk and midnight rain and moonless evenings. Her eyes were closing on their own accord, her hand was wrapping itself around the arm that was wrapped around her and though she stopped breathing, Edward's scent permeated her being.

And as his downy soft lips touched hers, Carmen flew with Edward again. Some sort of energy was racing through her, from where her bottom lip was firmly ensconced between his. His hands were still, one resting lightly on her waist and no other part of their bodies touched. It was a tasteful, chaste kiss but to Carmen, it was was something beyond. She had never felt anything so soft, so almost, so nearly but not quite, and behind her closed lids, she was seeing stars and galaxies and worlds outside of this one.

He pulled away slowly, and with a low, quiet voice full of chuckles, he said, "Maybe I'll see you at the swings."

As he walked away, the entire hallway stared after him, looking like uniform caricatures, eyes bugging out in disbelief, mouths agape in awe. Like a choreographed chorus, they swung their heads to look at Carmen, who was still standing in place, big, innocent brown eyes wide, open and dazed, fingers hovering over her lips, as if afraid to touch them.

Bella hadn't been there for Carmen-gate. But by the end of the day, she heard a million versions.

"Oh my god, did you hear? Edward Cullen just walked right up to Carmen Weber and kissed her! In the middle of the hallway! In front of everyone!" That was Alice and her exclamations.

"Ugh, I heard they were just going at it at her locker, making out, grabbing each other, totally not caring that everyone was watching." That was Lauren and her exaggerations.

"So do you think they're dating? I really don't think so because I mean, he is supposed to be in my Physics class but he's not anymore so I couldn't ask him, but he didn't even talk to her after that, and he talked to me the other day, and I really just don't see her being his type at all. And like I said, he didn't even talk to her at all again." That was Jessica and her explanations (and run on sentences).

"So what Cullen decides that he's cool now so he's got to prove it by kissing Waiting Till I Wed Weber? I get what Cullen's pulling. He's the new sheriff in town, so he's gotta prove his worth. Fine, stick it to Chastity Belt Weber if you want. But what the fuck was that with those other bitches? He doesn't have to piss all over every girl just because he's the new top dog." _That _was Mike Newton and his envy (and mixed metaphors).

Bella wondered what bizarre, Twilight Zone episode she'd fallen into that everyone seemed to be talking about Edward Cullen. The same Edward Cullen who two days ago didn't even register on their radar. The same greasy Edward Cullen whose now signature oversexed hairstyle, that everyone from Mike to Tyler "I'm gonna grow an afro this year" Crowley was aping. The same coke-bottle glasses-wearing Edward Cullen whose eyes had hypnotized Carmen Weber into kissing him. The same dorky Edward Cullen, now worthy of his own cover on GQ…whom she had turned down just a few months ago.

Who was this guy?

[-]

_Floating, falling, sweet intoxication,  
Touch me, trust me, savor each sensation  
Let the dream begin, let your darker side give in._

[-]

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A/N: Indescribable amount of thanks to those who have read and reviewed; your words mean so much. thank you to those who alerted as well.


	4. Chapter 3: Myth

**A/N****:** All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended. However, I, under the penname listed above, do own this story, plot and its variations. I prefer it not to be plagiarized and thank you in advance.

thank you to quothme, who catches all my shoutouts to the movie, even when I don' t know I've made them.  
thank you to quothme, yes twice, because that's how many drafts I sent and how many times she edited this for me.

kellyjaxn made me a banner! Check it out on my profile page. There's a continuation of this a/n below (oh joy) but right now, let's get (it) on with the longest chapter yet (that's not saying much, but still.)

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**Chapter 3**

Carmen was a certainly a coup. But Edward didn't stop there. He might as well have been Cullen the Conqueror, the ultimate soldier of seduction.

His reconnaissance was his molasses smile, slow and suspiciously sweet, sneaking up on his prey and coating their minds with thoughts of his taste, his smell, his feel. His cavalry was his body, the way his tight, taut waist tapered into long, lean legs, the way he carried his six feet of height with the regality of an emperor. And his infantry, oh his wondrous infantry—his clever, candid hands, his long, thin, almost feminine fingers, agents of the touch that no woman could resist.

And though she was trying with all her might, Bella Swan was discovering that she wasn't the exception. She stood outside the classroom and took a deep breath. It was probably the last calm breath she would be able to take for the next 45 minutes until the sweet, sensuous torture of being Edward Cullen's lab partner was over. Bracing herself, she stepped into the classroom and walked straight to her table before she let herself look at Edward.

He was perfectly… well, perfect. Clean white sneakers, dark jeans hugging his lovely long legs and a dark gray henley that was just the right degree of snug—these were the perfect garnishes as Bella's eyes feasted on his golden, taut skin and autumn-leaf colored hair. As her eyes traveled up, she was startled to meet his gaze. He hadn't fixed his signature slow-burn stare on her. He was looking at her rather sweetly, his smile broad in genuineness.

"Good morning, Bella," he said. She quietly returned the greeting before looking at the lab table and letting her hair fall forward. More than genetics or cellular biology, Bella had learned that when it came to Edward she had a bit of a staring problem. One lesson, upon catching her mid-stare, Edward had teasingly commented, "Contrary to popular belief, you can't just stare my clothes off. It has to be done manually." With his lascivious, lopsided smile in place, he had reached down to yank his sweatshirt off (it had been extremely hot in the classroom), missing Bella's eyes grow so wide that they could have fallen out. In her mind's eye, it was a little like an animated scene—Edward was Jessica Rabbit and she was Roger, eyes popping comically out at the sight of a sliver of his concrete stomach. By the time Edward had pulled the sweatshirt off his head, Bella had quickly excused herself to Mr. Banner and run to the restroom. When she returned, Edward apologized for offending her, but she was so mortified that she could only give a non-committal shrug.

And so Bella was determined to stop looking at Edward, which was easier said than done. Edward had noticed that since his comment, Bella had seemed uncomfortable. He wanted to get Bella comfortable again and get her talking to him (also easier said than done). But he was determined.

Bella was _important_.

"What's this?" Bella asked warily, looking to see Edward smiling beatifically at her, palm outstretched and resting on the lab table.

"A dollar." His grin was impish and he looked more like a little boy than a sexual savant. As soon as Bella realized that she was noticing his smile, she jerked her head back down. She didn't reply.

"You're not going to ask me why I'm giving you a dollar?" Edward pressed. Bella simply shook her head, afraid of what she would say were she to reply. Something about Edward—this Edward—rendered her a babbling, wide-eyed idiot. Alternately, she was a mute marionette without anyone pulling on her strings. Neither was particularly appealing behavior as neither was really what Bella was like. So she chose silence.

"You're really not in the least bit curious that there's a chance I might be soliciting you?"

Bella looked at him in shock.

"Soliciting you for a good lab grade! Jeez, Bella what'd you think I meant?" The smile that accompanied his words was more mischievous than naughty and chipped the last of Bella's resolve of silence.

"Fine, Edward. Why do you have a dollar?" she said, trying to train her voice to be exasperated but instead sounding slightly amused. Which she was.

"I'm giving you a dollar for your thoughts," he announced.

"I believe the expression is a penny." She couldn't resist replying. He was, as in all other aspects, irresistible to talk to. And somehow, today Edward seemed less intimidating, more intimate—but in a non-sexual way. It was in the way he leaned slightly into Bella without disrupting her space, how he held and broke eye contact at intervals, how he never lost his smile and his smile never lost its sincerity. Most importantly, however, he hadn't started taking off his clothes.

"Well, I think your thoughts are worth more than that."

"Certainly not a dollar."

"Overpriced?"

"Yes, it raises the bar too high." She was a sucker for witty repartee.

"Alright, a dime for your thoughts. Give me ten." Edward's smirk was glib not smug.

"Well, since you're such an enthusiastic customer, maybe I'll throw in one or two for free."

"Alright! A dozen for a dime. Hah! A dime, a dozen!"

"That's not quite what it means. You need to brush up on your sayings."

"Easier said than done."

"Enough with the idioms already!"

"People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Or in this case, people who haven't spoken in weeks shouldn't criticize other people's speech. Especially if those other people influence their lab grades."

"I wasn't criticizing your speech," Bella replied, knowing that she absolutely had been.

"It's okay. I'll take you being mean over silence. A Bella in hand is worth two in the bush."

"A _bird_ in hand…"

Edward continued as if he hadn't heard her. "But they do say silence is golden."

"Your idioms!"

"You're an idiom!" By now, Bella was cracking up. Edward had lowered his tone and tried adopt a voice akin to a Homer Simpson-like idiot. Bella thought she might have found the first thing he was terrible at.

Because it certainly wasn't biology. They raced through their lab, bantering and laughing. She couldn't remember the last time she had enjoyed a class so much. Only halfway through the period, Edward grabbed their lab and headed to the front of the room, telling Bella he was going to see if they could get out of class early since it was the last of the day and he had somewhere he had to be.

As he walked away, Bella felt a twinge of disappointment. She had a delightful time in the past thirty minutes. Then, like a sudden chill, she felt a second, more acute disappointment. In their past few Bio classes, Edward had been talkative and startlingly easy to get along with, but he hadn't been what Bella would have described as friendly. He had been more teasing, each sentence usually dripping with double entendre or made playful by a libidinous smile. He had never been so goofy, so open, so… _adorable_ before. This Edward was so at odds with the smirking, strutting sex god and she had thoroughly enjoyed it. Yet… stories of his relentless, irresistible seduction had now become legendary. Surely it wasn't this sweet, quiet allure that got him all the girls. Bella couldn't help but suffer from grass-is-greener syndrome. Where was the raw sexual magnetism that (rumor had it) had made Victoria James haul him into the janitor's closet and have her wicked way with him?

Hell, even Ms. Platt was giggling like the schoolgirls she taught as Edward turned in their lab. He spoke a few words to her, sweet smile rendered just the right mix of flirtatious, dangerous and naughty by his typical eyebrow raise, before turning to Bella and waving as he exited the classroom.

His smile had gotten both of them out of class early. Courtesy of Ms. Platt, the school's most notorious disciplinarian. He could snort cocaine in the crowded cafeteria and worm his way out of detention, Bella thought, partly bitter, partly amused as she exited the room.

[-]

Of course, Edward did end up getting detention one time.

It all started when Rosalie Hale began to come into his shop class during her free period. She had long, blonde hair that hung over her breasts when she leaned forward. Her penchant for v-neck shirts and denim short shorts was the source of many a fantasy. And she was famous for her mouth—her whip-smart retorts being only the second reason. She was stunning, stubborn… and angry.

Hell hath no fury like a Hale scorned.

Three weeks prior, she had kneed Emmett right in his McCarty manhood in front of the whole school at lunch, after finding out from Lauren Mallory that he had strayed. Her brother, Henry, chose to sit with his other friends from then on. Jason Scott, the 'pro' to her 'con' in debate, skipped class the next day. Mike Newton, her lab partner, switched to 8th period Bio, and Mr. Varner didn't even question it when she told Ms. Young she'd like to spend her free periods in the auto-shop garage. In fact, it was possible that in the three weeks since she potentially ended the McCarty bloodline, no male had dared talk to her.

But then again, Edward Cullen was no mere male.

For three weeks, Rosalie had worked silently, not asking anyone to hand her so much as a wing nut. One day, Edward was trying to screw something—that is, he was trying to tighten a screw, but the grease on his hands was causing the wrench to slip from his grip. Impatient, Rosalie shouldered him out of the way, taking over and pushing him away by placing her hand flat on the center of his hard chest. Her middle finger fit perfectly in the open "v" of his button up. Upon making contact with the light dusting of hair at the top of his chest, she looked up, still tightening the screw with her other hand.

Edward's assured gold gaze met her bold blue one and held it.

Her hand on the engine kept moving in short arcs, continuing its ministrations.

Edward's hand covered the one Rosalie still held to his chest, the grease warm and slick between their joined flesh.

Her middle finger curled slightly, grazing his skin as she kept screwing.

He smirked, eyes narrowing slightly as the tip of his pliant, pink tongue peeked out between his perfect, pretty lips.

Suddenly, Rosalie stopped turning the wrench.

The screw was wound as tight as it would go.

Rumor has it, the only thing Rosalie ever said to him was his name. Which she screamed during lunch, so loudly that Mrs. Cope heard it in the office and came to see why Ms. Hale was making such a ruckus. And there Rosalie was, her back arched on the hood of the car she and Edward had been fixing, legs on his shoulders, being, in the words Mrs. Cope used to tell Ms. Gianna, "screwed right past heaven and into her next life."

Edward got detention for a week. Rosalie got even. Both made high school history.

And as far as Edward's punishment went? He started detention on Tuesday afternoon. On Wednesday morning, Ms. Gianna, the detention supervisor, put in an order for a new desk. When Superintendent Smith asked why she needed another desk despite the school providing new ones for all classrooms a few months prior, Ms. Gianna could only giggle. Edward was not in detention on Wednesday or ever again.

[-]

Bella was incredibly frustrated. She was by her locker during her free period, looking for a Calculus worksheet that she needed to complete today. Of course, it was nowhere in sight. So she was tearing through more than two years' worth of schoolwork, rifling through the notebooks and folders over and over again in the hopes that the worksheet might magically appear. As she was flipping through a folder mindlessly, a sheaf of papers caught her eye. The title read 'The Yeti, Abominable Snowman and other Avatars, by Edward Cullen and Bella Swan.' They had gotten an 'A' and apparently, Bella had felt the need to keep all the notes—even the ones in Edward's swirling cursive. One page was a list of potential topics—below stories on the varied mythos of vampires but above stories of werewolves was a tiny set of words, almost unreadable due to Edward's script. 'The Legends of Incubi and Succubus.' Bella smiled, remembering the old Edward's reaction to the conversation she'd manipulated him into. She wondered why Edward had even bothered to write down her suggested (and suggestive) topic. If she and Edward had been partnered on the project this year, the conversation would probably have gone…differently.

Shuffling through more papers, she came across a note card with six words written on it, 'I'm asking you to ask me', which took her back to a rather embarrassing incident last year. It had been a few days before the student council's latest brilliant idea—a Sadie Hawkins dance where the girls asked the guys. Some girls squealed over the opportunity. But Bella, Rose and Alice had referred to it as the Sadist Hawkins dance. She had been at her open locker when she realized she had dropped a page of notes a few feet back. She had scampered to reach them and had returned to find this note sitting on the top of the pile in her locker. With no signature. She had looked up and down the hallway and found it nearly empty—only a group of girls clustered around a locker and… Jasper Whitlock several feet away. Unbelievably, Jasper had then raised his hand and waved at her. For once, she had gotten over her shock quickly and raised her hand to wave back… when Irina Denali had brushed past her and into Jasper's arms. Bella had hid her head in her locker in mortification until she was sure they had left. And she never found out who left that note.

"Oh my god! No!" The caustic screech of Lauren Mallory brought Bella out of her reverie. The fact that they were talking about Rosalie kept her listening. "But, she hasn't even _looked_ at a guy since she broke up with Emmett. Who was it?"

Jessica's reply caused a reaction in Bella that she had never felt. At first, she was impressed, admiration washing over her. But it was quickly replaced by outrage, racing through her veins—outrage that she refused to acknowledge was due in part to envy. The feelings pulsing through her were so intense, so overwhelming that she couldn't even celebrate that her assignment had magically appeared at last. Instead, she stewed all through the rest of the day, looking fraught and seeing nothing in her distant stare, until she burst through the double doors and out to the parking lot at the end of the day.

"Rosalie Hale!" Bella's voice carried into the car the minute she yanked the door open and slid into the front seat. "Tell me you didn't!"

"Jeez Bella, at least shut the door," Rose returned, sapphire eyes cool. Bella faltered, then turned and slammed the door shut. Alice poked her head between the two seats.

"Tell her you didn't what?" she asked, her onyx eyes swinging between the two girls like a pendulum. Bella resembled a child's doll, her cheeks peach from rushing into the car, her apple lips pursed in a straight line and her chocolate eyes narrowed and accusing. Even though she was leaning forward, her fist clenched and her mouth flinging confrontational words, her voice held none of the gusto and tenor of someone truly outraged.

"Tell me you didn't hook up with Edward Cullen in his car after school on Monday."

Rosalie didn't even flinch. Instead, she looked casually back at Alice, who was giving her best impression of a shocked, scandalized goldfish. While she was normally a soprano saxophone, tiny and high-pitched, Alice sometimes forwent the squeaks to mouth silently, eyes frantic, eyebrows scrunched, face taut on certain occasions—like now.

"At ease, Alice." Rosalie's tone was a verbal eye roll. "And Bella—I didn't hook up with Edward Cullen in his car after school." She barked at the two to put on their seatbelts, and Bella slumped, slightly mollified, back into her seat and complied. Rosalie shifted the cherry red convertible into gear and pulled out of the lot, nearly running over Eric Yorkie, wheels pealing at the same pitch as Alice's recovered laugh.

When the car was a sufficient distance away from the school, Rosalie glanced at her passengers. Bella appeared enraptured at the sight of Forks' foliage, her fury fleeting as always, and Alice was humming quietly as she texted. Rosalie's left eyebrow was quirked high on her smooth forehead. The stage was set, and Rosalie was nothing if not dramatic.

"I didn't hook up with Edward Cullen in his car after school. I had sex with Edward Cullen on the hood of the truck we were fixing in the auto-shop garage during lunch. Mrs. Cope walked in and would've expelled us both if I hadn't fake cried and started telling her about how an evil boy broke my heart and how I just wanted to feel loved again," she stated, detachedly and evenly, not acknowledging how true her statement was.

Alice looked like she was bobbing for apples.

Bella, on the other hand, was approaching outrage.

"But you said—Edward Cullen—how much—that's where—did Mrs. Cope see—at lunch—how did—what—" Bella spluttered, big brown eyes wide with astonishment, brows pulled together in irritation at her inability to articulate her astonished anger. Finally she settled with, "On the hood of a truck?"

Rose smirked.

But Bella wasn't done. Not by a long shot. Her inability to discern her own feelings toward Edward were frustrating. On one hand, his promiscuity irritated the dormant feminist in her, but she couldn't deny how delicious he was. And then, after that biology class a few weeks ago, she had just begun to find him as appealing in personality as in appearance. She had been waiting for another chance to encounter _that_ Edward but unfortunately they hadn't had any labs in the last several weeks and she hadn't been able to talk to him. Now, that hope was fading away with the realization that he had sex with one of her best friends… the amalgamation of teenage angst, hormones, envy towards Rosalie and her unflagging, unholy attraction to Edward were reaching fever pitch, and Rose's admission was the perfect segue. With all the coherency of her previous sentence, Bella began berating Rosalie for acting no different than that floozy Lauren Mallory and all of Edward Cullen's other conquests by giving into him and his strange sexual mojo (yes, Rose did snort in disbelief when Bella uttered that phrase). But Rose said nothing, sensing that there was something more to her friend's nonsensical and misplaced tirade until—

"How was it?" Alice asked. Bella shut up immediately.

Without warning, Rosalie swerved the car onto a nearly deserted road that led to an abandoned water tank. She revved the engine and shifted smoothly into third gear, jerking Bella and Alice into their seats. She upshifted again into fourth, accelerating the car further, ignoring the terrified look on Bella's face in her peripheral vision. Her eyes didn't wander from the road, her entire body singularly focused on driving, finally shifting into fifth with a devilish smile. The engine roared, brown and green blurs whizzing as the momentum buzzed through the entire car.

Just as suddenly, she jerked off the road and slammed on the brakes, cutting the steering wheel to the left and using the centripetal force to complete a dizzying, exhilarating 180-turn that brought the car to a standstill on the road.

Bella and Alice stared at her as if she was out of her mind, but the look on their faces said it all. They were panting, whooshes of breath unheard over the blood rushing through their ears. Their pulse was flying, their adrenaline was soaring and their eyes were aloft with a shiny excitement.

"Yeah," Rosalie said, answering Alice's question. "It was like that."

Without another word, she drove back onto the main road and toward Bella's house. Immediately, her foot began to itch—she craved speed again. She pressed down on the clutch, preparing to shift into the third gear and zoom off, when suddenly, she decelerated. Bella and Alice watched, mouths agape, as a car in the next lane came up fast and overtook her.

Rose _never_ let anyone overtake her. _Ever_. As the car in front zoomed forward, Bella swiveled to see if she could identify it.

It was a shiny, silver Volvo.

Bella's eyes slid to Rose, who immediately began fiddling with her GPS system as if she hadn't driven to Bella's house innumerable times. In that moment, Bella knew. Edward Cullen was not normal. Normal guys didn't wrangle kisses from Carmen Webber. Normal guys didn't overtake Rosalie Hale. Normal guys didn't look like their every movement should be filmed in slow motion.

She was going to expose Edward Cullen. For whatever he was.

[-]

_Feel it, hear it, closing in around you..._

_in this darkness which you know you cannot fight._

[_-_]

* * *

A/n: I write this on Twilighted but not here, so I'm going to start. As always, most importantly thank you for reading. Those of you who review especially and even those of you who don't, thanks for being a big part (the audience) of my little story. I'm really bad with replying to reviews ( but I always reply to PMs) but I really want you to know how much you all mean to me.

Also, if you found yourself liking Roseward, check out TheHeartofLifeIsGood's Long Way Back Home. Her one shot won one of the categories for the First Time Writer's Challenge and it's a great character exploration.


	5. Chapter 4: The

**A/n**: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended. However, I, under the penname listed above, do own this story, plot and its variations. I prefer it not to be plagiarized and thank you in advance.

For those of you who have seen the cover pic of RP's Details photoshoot... that is the absolute epitome of how I envision this Edward. Right down to the smirk.

Endless thanks to quothme, a beta so awesome she's practically an alpha.

* * *

**Chapter Four**

The minute Bella got home, she rushed to her computer, eager to do research on the strange phenomenon that was Edward. She wrenched her laptop open and poised her fingers over the computer, savoring the hum of energy running through the machine beneath her hand, energy that emulated her own excitement.

And then she stared at the Google homepage for thirty seconds. What was she supposed to enter in the 'search' field?

'What is Edward Cullen?'

'Why can't any woman resist Edward Cullen?'

'Why did Rose sleep with Edward Cullen?'  
She had no idea what to begin with—if seduction was Edward's sickness, then what were the symptoms? Being too good looking? Being charming?

Stepping back from her desk, a frown on her face and a furrow on her forehead, Bella decided she wasn't at the point where she was ready to collect information yet. The big brown eyes, breasts and beautiful female friends hid it well, but Bella Swan wasn't above embracing her inner nerd and her childhood introvert impulses. She and Edward hadn't gotten an 'A' on their research project on his merit alone—she had a rapacious appetite for knowledge and a methodical madness to her collection of it. And she was nowhere near ready for the big bad World Wide Web yet—for goodness' sake, she was only on step two of the scientific method! But step one was complete, if slightly oversimplified. She had her question: what was Edward Cullen? Now, the next move: observation.

If Bella's eyes hadn't glazed over in dreamy distraction, she would have seen her reflection in her dresser mirror and been appalled. Eyes lost in a lusty haze, smile ever so salacious, heart palpitating in the pending promise of observing Edward, she had the look of a wanton woman who was going to enormously enjoy _this_ experiment.

[-]

A few hours later, Bella was in the fresh produce aisle of the grocery store, absently squeezing various vegetables and fruits before depositing them back. Her slovenly movements betrayed the furious speed of her mind, various thoughts competing in a dead heat for her comprehension. She was trying to mentally catalogue all her moments with Edward, in his new avatar as well as his old, looking for some sort of clue.

She was contemplating his, for lack of a better word, sluttiness as she moved away from the fridges into the cereal aisle. It incensed her to no end, but for some reason, she couldn't honestly say that she found him unappealing. There was something about him, a vague quality that she couldn't quite grasp. It was like whenever he was around, he created a smoke screen that clouded the brain, making it impenetrable to everything but his movements, his words, just _him_.

Suddenly, she felt a cool breeze, like she was back at the freezers. She shivered, looked up and jumped slightly when she saw the very devil she had been thinking of standing next to her.

"How do you do that?" Bella asked.

"Do what?" Edward replied, nonchalantly browsing cereal boxes.

"How do you appear out of nowhere?" Mentally, Bella was adding that to the list of strange abilities Edward seemed to possess but she could feel the edges of the smog that blanketed her brain whenever he was near start to creep in.

"Maybe you're just unobservant," he shot back.

"Thanks," Bella said dryly. Edward grinned at her widely.

"Would you prefer this?" he said, before running out of the aisle without further explanation. Seconds later, he returned, shouting rather loudly, "Hey Bella! Hey Bellaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" His grin was wide and playful.

"What was that?" Bella asked in disbelief, eyes round and surprised. Edward looked at her incredulously, as if she should have already known.

"That was me channeling Brando playing Stanley Kowalski, of course."

"Of course," Bella said, tone tinged with sarcasm, as she allowed herself to smile. Edward let out a deep laugh, almost a chortle, that was different than his usual taunting, teasing, tantalizing chuckle. Combined with his previous actions and shouts, it made him seem playful, free and childlike. She held up the book in her hand. "You're a Brando fan?"

"I'm a big fan of Tennessee Williams."

"You are?"

"Sure." Edward's voice dropped from a laughing lilt to a serious but eager tone. "Aside from his work, he wrote one of my favorite quotes. 'A prayer for the wild at heart, kept in cages.'" Bella stared at him. Her mind couldn't help but take that slightly literally—after all, there was something wild about Edward, something inhuman. To her, it was more supernatural than savage, but still. The quote fit.

"That's… um, beautiful," Bella replied nervously. "I'm doing a project on it for English, where I have to epitomize the play in five quotes."

"That sounds pretty interesting. Williams' every word is practically a sound bite," Edward remarked. His gaze and his voice deepened with uncharacteristic and earnest seriousness. "One comes to mind right now: 'I like you to be exactly the way you are, because in all my experience, I have never known anyone like you.'" His eyes searched hers as if willing her to understand the meaning, but Bella couldn't focus on anything but the golden rays in front of her.

Edward's chin was down, his eyes unblinking and sincere and his signature smirk was nowhere on his face. It was like their surroundings had fallen away. It was like everything had halted to travel in slow motion—but there was no motion. Like her, Edward was standing stock-still, his gaze locked on her. She felt an immense connection to him in that moment, as if there was a thread that linked her to him.

But damn it all if Edward didn't remain a mystery. A few seconds after seemingly revealing pieces of himself to her, he abruptly broke the connection that had been formed by his cute confession-cum-quotation.

"Bye, Bella," he said, his pursed lips widening into a grin, his errant eyebrow popping up. Bella blinked a few times, dazedly emerging from the moment, his words rendering the tenuous thread between them torn. Like the delayed feeling of relief when one catches oneself before falling, Bella heard the blood rush in her ears, her pulse pounding percussively. She was disoriented without Edward's sure, steady gaze to anchor her, and her brain was awash in a sea of sensations.

Edward stepped forward, frowning slightly as Bella instinctively inched back, and lightly brushed his index finger across her nose. The tip tingled from his touch and for a moment, she felt like she was drowning in his mint-and-midnight smell.

Just as suddenly as he appeared, Edward was gone.

She saw him again as she approached the checkout line. He was walking to the exit, twirling his keys around his indecently long, lithe index finger. Mrs. Clearwater chose that moment to place her hand on his arm and greet him.

Intrigued as to how he knew Mrs. Clearwater, Bella inched closer to catch a few snatches of their conversation. It briefly ran through her mind that maybe he'd slept with _her _as well, but the gentle, matronly way she was speaking with the boy dissuaded Bella from that notion.

"How are your parents, Edward?"

"Oh, they're fine. My dad is running low on that fish fry Harry makes. He'll be around for some soon, I expect," Edward replied amicably.

"Have you kept in touch with Leah, dear?" Mrs. Clearwater asked. At the question, Edward looked around surreptitiously to see if there was anyone listening. Bella quickly ducked her head down and pretended to be engrossed in whether she'd like her teeth whitened or breath freshened from her choice of chewing gum.

"Um… no, I'm afraid not. How is she?" Edward said. He was mumbling, his wind-chime voice without its usual mellifluous, molten flow. Bella snuck a peek at him. He looked… nervous, eyes darting around, completely uncomfortable. He looked nothing like his normal, self-satisfied, self-confident self. He looked like Bella's lab partner from last year.

"She's good. Enjoying college in Chicago, although she says that pizza is far too good for her to maintain her figure. Seth says hello as well," she continued. "He _always_ asks how you are. It'll be nice to tell him I ran into you. You seem to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time, Edward."

Bella resisted the urge to snort. Even Mrs. Clearwater had noticed. And how did Edward know Leah and Seth Clearwater? The twins had graduated two years ago and both attended the University of Chicago.

"Yes, please say hello to them for me and tell them I'll send an email or something as soon as possible." Edward's words were polite but perfunctory, a clear sign to anyone but an adult that he wasn't interested in continuing the conversation.

"Well, maybe you can go back again to visit some time soon. Seth says he had such a wonderful time with you and Leah last summer, and he has so few male friends," Mrs. Clearwater continued, oblivious. Bella's mind was racing. She had known that Edward had spent the summer in Chicago… but apparently he had either stayed with or spent a lot of time with Leah and Seth Clearwater. And sometime over that summer, he had transformed from Edward Cullen, geeky, gawky loser lab partner to _Edward Cullen_, paranormally potent, possibly supernatural seducer.

Mrs. Clearwater was still rambling, unaware of Edward's increasing discomfort and his rapidly diminishing discourse. "And of course, you look so handsome now, Edward. Ever since you've come back from Chicago, it's clear that you're no longer Elizabeth's little boy. You're a man now." At this declaration, Edward's keys slipped off his fingers and flew to the floor. He quickly excused himself from Mrs. Clearwater and walked over to retrieve his keys. Bella, watching from the corner of her eyes, noticed that he let out a deep breath as soon as he was away from the older woman and couldn't help but be surprised. Implacable, imperturbable Edward, who strutted around Forks like a princely peacock, his beautiful plumage always on display, had his feathers ruffled by a harmless little lady.

But Bella—and the rest of the patrons'—attention was snatched and refocused on one singular sight. Edward had bent over to retrieve his fallen keys. The whole grocery store, not a single man in sight, drew in a collective breath and stared. There are words, of course, for that particular body part. And there are adjectives to describe it—delectable derriere, round rump, bountiful buns, fleshy fanny, beautiful booty, taut tush, hot heinie, work-of-art wazoo, astonishing ass, the list goes on ad nauseam. But none of those, even put together, were enough to describe the sight at the front of Forks Supermart. As Edward stood up and strolled out of the store, all the shoppers let out a sigh in unison.

Later, as Bella was waiting to pay, she couldn't help but overhear Mrs. Clearwater speak to Afton, the checkout girl at the next register. Apparently, the maternal matron act she had used around Edward was just that—an act. Like everyone else, she was not immune to Edward and was now, with all the enthusiasm of a teenybopper, agreeing with Afton's assessment of Edward in loud, libidinous tones.

"Good lord, Narcissus himself would take a break to look at that boy. Every time he bends over, I say Mazel Tov. To myself, for being lucky enough to witness it. I'm not even Jewish! If God created Edward in his image, then a-men, I cannot wait to meet my maker," she said, raising her hands and dropping them like she was part of a gospel choir in church. She grinned lecherously before adding, "I'm not even Christian."

But Bella thought the woman was dead wrong. Edward had nothing to do with God. If he wasn't Lucifer himself, then he had to be created in his image because he screamed of sin.

[-]

For all his affinity and appeal with the female sex, Edward generally avoided much interaction with the male gender. Some speculated that this was because he had no use for them—he didn't appear particularly interested in seducing men. Others theorized that this was because, in his rhythmical ruination of Forks' feminine virtue, he had stepped on some toes—ex-boyfriends, potential amours, even current flings. Although, adding to his peculiarity, no guy had persecuted him for it, he had not befriended anyone either.

His limited friends, male or otherwise, were in Chicago, people who he had met over the past summer, one of awakenings and metamorphoses. In theory, Seth Clearwater could be considered a friend, though his intentions were decidedly not. Edward had merely put up with it because of all the time he was spending with Leah. In fact, the only male peer Edward could actually say he considered more than an acquaintance was Jasper, who had spent some of the summer also visiting Leah after he graduated before returning briefly to Forks.

Edward simply wasn't a guy's guy.

So it was a great misfortune that one day Edward found himself in conversation—if you could call it that—with the epitome of male miscreants, Mike Newton and Tyler Crowley. He was then subjected to one of the worst dialogues thus far in his life. Newton looked completely ridiculous with his over-gelled hair cemented in a bad emulation of Edward's perpetual bed head, but it was Tyler who really pushed the boundaries of bad taste. His hair, crinkly and crimped and mildly resembling that of an afro, was styled like Edward's as well. But the texture of his hair had rendered it so that his entire coif was a vertical pillar of matted black hair, vaguely reminiscent of Butthead. This was not altogether inappropriate, since Tyler's behavior was more than just vaguely reminiscent of the animated idiot.

"What's your secret, Cullen?" Tyler demanded. He and Beavis—Mike—had cornered Edward on the field after gym. Though they weren't standing very close to him, their rank, rancid, slightly scarily sour body odor had a blanketing effect, leaving Edward feeling rather claustrophobic despite being outdoors. "What do you do that has all these ladies smiling like the Cheshire pussy?"

Edward arched his eyebrow. "I believe the character's name was the Cheshire Cat." His tone was similar to someone who had just declared that they had stepped on gum—irritated and disgusted but never losing its cool disinterest.

Tyler grinned. "Yeah, but I made it clever see because… like cats are sometimes called pussies and pussies are you know... and it's sex, man. You know... Sex!" he declared excitedly, shooting a nod at his partner in grime, Newton. Mike matched his gesture in approval.

"I'm familiar with the concept," Edward said, icy disdain in his clipped tones.

Newton jumped into the conversation. "So spit it out, Cullen. What's your master weapon?"

Edward said nothing for a few moments, merely contemplating the morons in front of him. His smirk had emerged slightly when he finally said, "The Chinese philosopher Lao Tsu once said, 'a good traveler has no fixed plans and isn't intent on arriving.'"

Tyler and Mike looked at each in puzzlement for a few seconds before Crowley spoke excitedly. "So you mean like, we shouldn't care about coming? Like you were trying to be clever because 'arriving' and 'coming' are, like, the same word? Forget that man, just tell us what happened. Last year, you were the world's biggest loser—no offense—and this year you're like... a cuntosseiur."

Newton's head swung in Tyler's direction. "A cuntosseiur?"

Tyler nodded in affirmation. "A connoisseur of cunt."

"Nice! High five," the blond replied, affecting a silly Borat accent.

"I got another one," Tyler said excitedly. "The pundit of poon!"

"The poondit!"

"Nice!" This time, they managed to complete their exulted high five before turning back to Edward.

"So seriously, Cullen. What did that quote mean?" Mike asked.

Edward smiled sublimely, like he was the cat just toying with two idiotic canaries. "Just think about it." In reality, the quote had no connection to the topic at hand. But Edward knew that Mike and Tyler would spend an inordinate amount of time trying to dissect it and he could escape in the meanwhile.

As he was walking back to the school, he looked over to the far side of the field and saw Bella, her back to him, sitting on the bleachers. Changing directions, he began to jog over to her. She had a book open in front of her, her head resting on her hand, and it looked like she was staring into the distance. As he got closer, he realized Bella's gaze wasn't seeing anything—she was asleep.

But behind her closed lids, Bella was seeing something. She was having a vivid dream about Edward being in her bedroom. He had somehow magically appeared and was sitting on the bed next to her. When she had inquired how he had gotten there, he had motioned with uncharacteristic bashfulness towards the window. Her bedroom was dark, with only her desk lamp outlining his Patrician profile, nose straight, jaw all angles and heavy crest of his brow bone. Clearly, it was a dream as it was hot and muggy in the room—she was wearing a sleep-shirt and practically non-existent shorts while Edward was wearing thin sweats and a thinner t–shirt. As he placed his arm behind her to lean into her body, she could see the outline of his chest. She could feel the soft fabric brush against her arm, like a promising whisper. His body weighed down the bed like his presence weighed down the tension in the room and his eyes could not pick a spot. They roamed up her bare legs, almost palpable in their intensity, feeling like the feather touch of hands. They searched her face like a lover's caress, roved over her breasts like a only a man's eyes can and finally settled to meet her gaze.

This Edward had all the charm and beauty of her current lab partner and his golden eyes were shining. He looked at Bella with a gentleness that made her feel precious and pure but a hunger that made her feel feminine and feral. As she licked her lips, mirroring her thoughts, she saw Edward's eyes flick to them, burning bright like oil lamps with a deep, moist heat. She asked him what he was doing here (in her bedroom—even if she wouldn't admit it, she had a good idea of what he was doing in her fantasies) and was surprised to hear his words.

Well, not his words, which were simple enough. "I've always wanted to try one thing."

And not his actions, which were direct enough. He was leaning ever so slowly into her.

What caught her off guard was the way he spoke and the way he hesitated. He stumbled and tripped over his words, telling her "don't move" and to "hold still" with a stutter, almost whispering them. He looked like her lab partner of this year, but his demeanor was that of her shy project partner from last year, and she was surprised to find how much she liked this amalgamation.

Even his approach was shy as he hovered, their noses touching, his long eyelashes brushing her cheeks, asking her for permission to press his lips to hers. She moved a fraction of a millimeter closer in acquiescence and closed her eyes in anticipation of his kiss when suddenly, inexplicably, he whispered three words that nonsensically caused Bella's heart to soar.

"I prefer brunettes."

Bella was about to close the distance herself when he began calling—rather loudly, compared to the euphonious tones of his previous words—"Bella! Hey, Bella!"

Startled, she opened her eyes to see the very subject of her dreams grinning at her. But this was no shy, sweet Edward. This boy—man, even—was looking at her with sex in his stare and a smirk on his lips.

"Hold still," his voice intoned ominously. But his words were so similar to some of the last words his counterpart had said in her dream that they automatically caused Bella to jerk away from him. "Whoa there," he said, like he was calming a bucking horse. "There's something in your hair." His fingers reached toward her scalp and he gently ran his fingers through a few strands of her hair, never breaking their gaze. He held his palm out to show her a piece of lint.

"Sorry," Bella said, gathering the books strewn around her and attempting to do the same for her scattered wits. "I must have fallen asleep."

"Yeah, I thought I'd wake you up just in case you missed the bell. Fourth period is almost up."

"Thank you," she replied, both pleasantly surprised and surprisingly pleased at his thoughtfulness.

"As Blanche says, 'I have always depended on the kindness of strangers,'" Edward said, holding up Bella's copy of _A Streetcar Named Desire_.

"We're hardly strangers, Edward," Bella corrected. As always, despite her reservations about him, she never failed to be drawn into an exchange with him. Perhaps it was because Edward participated in dialogue, as opposed to alternating monologues like so many people did, giving it the misnomer of conversation. His replies were as good as the retorts he got. Which made Bella wonder what else he gave as good as he got.

"You're _hard_ly anything," he replied, eyes darkening slightly. His stare felt like a scorching ray of sun, leaving Bella hot and bothered. "You, Miss Bella Swan, are a lady, soft in everything, as you should be. Leave it to us guys to be hard."

Bella stopped breathing. Her heartbeat sped up. Her mouth went dry. And another part of her had the opposite reaction.

Edward met her eyes, stripping her of all thoughts, all words, leaving her as naked as the desire that shone in his look. Feeling like she was about to end up physically naked of her own volition if she didn't stop looking at Edward, Bella broke their gaze.

"So still at it with _Streetcar_, hmm?" Edward asked. "Found any quotes yet?"

"A couple. Not enough."

"Can I help?"

"Please." The words were out of Bella's mouth before she could contemplate their meaning. The mere presence of Edward seemed to have some strange sort of voodoo effect on her.

"So… you're looking for quotes, right? Well, there's the obvious one about the actual streetcar," Edward said. He picked up the slim novel and flipped through it easily, stopping at a page and holding the book towards her, indicating where she should began reading.

With a shaky voice, Bella read, '"But there are things that happen, between a man and a woman, in the dark—" she flushed a furious crimson, recalling her dream and lamenting her decision to read the passage out loud—"that sorta make everything else seem unimportant.'" Edward pulled the book towards him and continued reading.

"'What you are talking about is brutal desire. Just desire. The name of that rattletrap streetcar that bangs through the Quarter, up one old narrow street and down another.'" Bella looked at him to see his eyes on her, not the novel. "'Haven't you ever ridden that streetcar?'" He held her gaze for a few moments, as if expecting an answer. And Bella knew what her answer would have been, if she could have found a way to speak: Yes, she had ridden that streetcar. In fact, she was riding it right now… and was considering what else she could ride. But before she could open her mouth and shame herself, Edward broke eye contact and turned back to the book.

"That's a little blatant, of course. There's this wonderful one by Blanche, where… oh, here it is. Blanche is talking to Mitch about one of the hotels she used to live in… 'Tarantula Arms'," he continued. He pointed out the passage and read it out to her. "And then she says, 'Yes, a big spider. That's where I brought my victims. Yes, I've had many meetings with strangers.' She finally reveals herself for what she truly is."

Bella hadn't been paying much attention to what Edward was saying, preferring to focus on how his lips caressed each word he spoke, but with that quote, she snapped out of her lazy, lusty haze. He had said "victims." Well, Blanche DuBois had said it, but he had repeated it. And "victims" was a strange word—it implied a predatory/prey relationship, something she was strongly beginning to associate with Edward and his conquests.

She didn't quite know what to reply to his suggestions. Of course, he was just helping her with her project, but a strange panic had flooded through her. It stemmed from the fact that on one hand, she was dreaming about, lusting after, drooling over Edward, while on the other, he was fueling her suspicions that he wasn't normal, wasn't human. She thought that consideration alone would have caused her attraction to wane but it was, if anything, getting stronger. With each action, Edward somehow simultaneously fanned her fears, while revealing himself to be intelligent or funny or very likable. The constant streams of paradoxical thoughts running through her head were maddening and she felt quite on edge.

Luckily, at that moment, Bella was saved by the bell. She quickly let a sigh of relief as she and Edward parted ways to attend their respective classes. His knowledge of the play had been impressive and astounding, but the underlying implications of the quotes he had chosen—especially since Bella had pretty much made up her mind that Edward was _not_ normal and perhaps wild at more than just heart—was more than just a little disconcerting.

[-]

After a dinner spent in front of the droning television with Charlie, Bella rushed upstairs. Her latest observation of Edward, while intriguing, wasn't helpful because she still had no idea what to look for. She decided to take a fastidious approach and list all the traits Edward was displaying—that way she could note when he did something particularly odd, like appear out of nowhere. A few minutes later, as she reviewed what she had written, the thought crossed her mind that she may as well have been looking at the list of characteristics held by every male character ever to appear in a harlequin romance. Among her list of Edwardian traits were 'mysterious', 'seductive', 'strong', 'irresistible', 'dangerous' and… she realized she had written 'astonishingly attractive' three times. So much for scientific objectivity, she thought as she snorted out loud.

She picked up her copy of _A Streetcar Named Desire_, deciding to finish at least one project and smiling in spite of herself at both Edward's amendment of Brando's most infamous line and his vast knowledge of the book. She flipped it open and was surprised that the first quote she saw was the one Edward had spoken to her in the grocery store.

"I like you to be exactly the way you are, because in all my experience, I have never known anyone like you."

She considered their "moment" in the store, in all its soulful staring, heart racing glory. That was probably one of the nicest things anyone had ever said to Bella—if that was indeed the idea that Edward was trying to convey to her. But if so, why was he hooking up with everyone but her? In fact, just today she had seen him be led—no actually, pretty much bodily dragged by his collar—out of the cafeteria by Bree Charles (to which Rosalie had dryly commented, "Bree. Aggressive. Br- Ee aggressive" in mimicry of the cheerleading chant).

But she couldn't focus on whether Edward liked her or not when there was so much else for her to think about. Like maybe whether _she_ liked Edward. And, more importantly, whether Edward was even safe to like. She read the quote again. It was easily something she could turn around on him. She most definitely had never known anyone like him. But did she like him exactly the way he was? If her dream was any indication, then not quite. She clearly appreciated the confidence and the looks but apparently, her fickle heart had unknowingly retained a space for hyper-intelligent, uber shy, stuttering lab partner she had so thoughtlessly dismissed. Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, she attempted to turn back to the task at hand and flipped to another quote.

"I don't want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic. I try to give that to people. I do misrepresent things. I don't tell truths. I tell what ought to be truth," it read. But Bella's mind had already wandered away from the quote and back to the topic that seemed ever-present in her mind. Maybe she could ask Edward himself to write the list of his own oddities—after all, he had so ably listed each and every topic they had ever considered for their own project and had scrawled it down in his scrunched, busy cursive. She had just seen the list a few days ago.

And that was the first time Bella Swan had the craziest thought she had ever dared to think.

[-]

_Let your mind start a journey through a strange new world,_

_Leave all thoughts of life you knew before…_

* * *

As always, most importantly: Thank you for reading! I love love LOVE your reactions and theories as to what exactly is going on- it makes me write more enthusiastically. I appreciate everyone, giving Slut/Hussy/Whore/Incubus/Rebornward your time. He appreciates it and drops his keys every time someone reviews. He also salaciously smiles at me every time I use alliteration or consonance so now you know why I write the way I do.

Also How I Met Your Mother is my favorite show, which is where this story's name came from (plus i couldn't think of anything better). Those of you who pick up the HIMYM refs I drop and those of you who include some in your reviews (esp you appletree123) get a Computer-Five. Yes I really high fived my comp right then. You should too. I know when you don't comp five!


	6. Chapter 5: Legend

A/n: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended. However, I, under the penname listed above, do own this story, plot and its variations. I prefer it not to be plagiarized and thank you in advance.

A whole lot of chapters ago, I promised readers a certain something. I am finally coming through. I want to thank Beth/BookGeek80 for her expertise and help.  
Quoda: the name says it all.

* * *

**Chapter Five  
**

Immediately after school the next day, Bella holed herself up in the near empty library. Originally, in a crazy adrenaline rush from thinking that maybe the legend of the incubus would explain Edward, she had Googled it. But searching for information about a sex demon on the Internet was like holding a pornography party on your browser. Eventually, she found a website that gave a detailed history of the incubus. The website stated that incubi were most often demons that came into a woman's bedroom at night and had sex with her while she was asleep. That didn't describe Edward at all—not that she knew of, at least—but she pushed that thought aside, reasoning that there must be many different types of incubi in the world. Perhaps she had just stumbled on a new kind, the kind that was good looking and intelligent and well spoken and had all the trappings of a teenage boy. She thought about emailing the website author to tell them about her dilemma—after all, if anyone would be able to identify what Edward was, it should be the expert. But she couldn't bring herself to write the ridiculous e-mail. Instead, she decided to run preliminary tests on her hypothesis, according to a short but specific list of characteristics that often helped one identify an incubus.

Ever-organized, Bella wrote a heading: "Characteristics to Identify Incubi."

Then as if someone was watching her, she furtively glanced around and erased the word "incubus." If someone were to find this notebook, she didn't want to have to explain this list. In its place, she wrote "inmates." And she then frowned as she read the actual list. Which described nothing about inmates:

1) Often react strangely in the presence of crucifixes, with documented and rumored behaviors ranging from ticks and spasms to spontaneous combustion.

2) Are often thought to be "allergic" to the color yellow in its bright forms, as it mimics condensed daylight for these creatures that prefer night.

3) Those who were attacked often claimed that the demon had unusually cold skin; however, this account is conflicting. While some accounts state that it was cold all over, others state that the frigid body temperature was concentrated in one particular area: its genitals.

Anyone who saw this notebook would think she was seriously nuts. She wasn't sure she would disagree with them.

[-]

Later that night, Bella watched several reruns of _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_, reasoning that not only would it give her a view into supernatural, albeit fictional, creatures, it would also instill her with the kick-butt, girl power attitude she needed to crack the conundrum of the delicious, (maybe) demonic Edward Cullen. What she didn't expect was to wind up watching an episode that seemed to mimic her very own life, an episode in which every female, from protagonist Buffy and her sister Dawn to lesbian Willow and demon Anya fell in love with a football player. She watched slack-jawed and shocked as art appeared to imitate life until the episode culminated in the reveal that it was the guy's varsity football jacket that was the source of his mystery power.

She couldn't get the episode out of her mind as she walked into her biology class the next day. Edward had clearly been in and out of the classroom already—he was nowhere to be seen but his books were on the lab table… and his jacket was slung across the chair. As the weather had gotten colder, he had replaced his black leather one with a heather grey peacoat.

Bella reached out and tentatively fingered the sleeve, like she was touching a bomb. It was soft and downy, inviting and comfortable. Suddenly, Bella felt a huge jolt up her arm and snatched her hand back. Logically, she knew that it was static cling that had caused the shock but, paired with her overactive imagination, she stepped away from the offending article of clothing as if it was a livewire. Logically, she knew that Edward's jacket was not the reason he was a walking aphrodisiac, but she couldn't stop the shiver that shuddered down her spine. Logically, she knew she shouldn't take life lessons from _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_, but logic wasn't at the forefront of Bella's mind at this time.

"If you're cold, you can wear it." Edward's voice took her by surprise as she startled once again, inwardly cursing herself for being so jumpy. Buffy was never caught by surprise.

Edward mistook Bella's silence and continued, "Seriously, I don't mind. It'll be big on you but at least you'll be warm." He picked up the jacket with one finger and held it out to her, and she flinched violently, as if he were offering her barbed wire to wear. Their biology teacher always blasted the air-conditioner, so she could pass off her interest in his jacket because she was cold. But she had no explanation for the almighty flinch when Edward held out the offending item toward her or why she refused his offer with a silent shake of her head. If he noticed Bella's strange, mute behavior—and by the perplexed, pretty pout he wore, he did—he spoke nothing of it.

But by the end of class, Edward had clearly forgotten about Bella's bizarre behavior because, while Bella was gathering her books to go to her Intermediate French class, Edward did something that turned him impossibly, infinitely more appealing. Something that shooed all thoughts of incubi and monsters and lists out of her head, leaving a hazy static through which she struggled to maintain her mental and physical faculties and not drool.

"_Parles-tu français, Bella?"_

The answer to his question was very simple: yes, she did speak French. But all she could do was freeze and look at him wide-eyed, unable to understand but unable to deny the biological, feminine reaction she had to hearing him speak. In French. It was only made worse when he began to flirt with her.

In French.

"_Laisse-moi deviner ton nom dans la classe francaise_," he said, playfully. He didn't wait for her answer, but proceeded to do as he had said and guessed her French name_._ "_Belle? _ Because you are, you know. Not just _belle_, you are _la plus belle_." If Bella could have focused on his words, calling her not just beautiful, but the most beautiful, her _belle_ blush might have made its appearance, but it was like he was speaking in another language. Which he was, of course, but Bella had taken French for the past three years. She should have been able to understand him.

Instead, it was like his mouth was moving in slow motion with the audio turned down. All she could concentrate on were his lips, parting and thinning to form o's, his bottom lip disappearing under a crystal bright, congruent row of teeth as he pronounced his hard vowels, and his ruby, rhubarb red tongue incrementally emerging out of his mouth—and it was no wonder French was the language of love.

It certainly was the language of lust.

She could scarcely pay attention to where she was walking, as she and Edward navigated out of the classroom and into the hallway, let alone anything he was saying. His words filtered into her head in meaningless, sexy fragments. Meaningless, sexy fragments… _in French_.

"_Est-ce que_—" Edward's tongue "—_que je_—" Edward's tongue "—_avec_ _toi—" _Edward's tongue, twice "—_classe_?" She missed his entire question—asking whether he could walk her to class—save for that last part and thought that she might just agree to anything _avec _(with) him and his torturously torrid tongue that was speaking in a foreign tongue. She realized he was waiting for an answer.

"_Oui_," she said, her tone rendering it a question.

"_Oui_?" Edward parroted, his mouth forming a distracting, delicious pucker as he pronounced the word, his eyebrow challenging her as to whether she knew what she had just agreed to. At this point, he could have asked the most famous French question of all—_voulez-vous coucher avec moi en ce moment _instead of _ce soir—_and her answer would still probably be "_oui._"

In her daze, she realized that they were now standing right outside of her French classroom.

"_Au revoir, la plus Belle-_a," he said tauntingly as he continued down the hallway. Her hazy brain registered that Edward always seemed to have a time limit when he was talking to her—he would often end the conversation abruptly, always leaving her wanting more. She spent the rest of the day contemplating Edward's potential para-normality. He was so sweet sometimes, his smile so boyishly buoyant and vivid in its veracity, that it disarmed her desire to see the worst in him. Her confidence in her crazy conclusion about him began to wane. Edward simply _couldn't_ be an incubus.

Bella didn't see Edward until the end of the day when almost everyone had already left school premises. As she was walking to the library, this time not to delve further into her crackpot theory about him but to do some schoolwork,she saw him loitering, quite suspiciously, in the empty hallway outside of the AV room. Some strange inner urging instinctually cautioned her to avoid getting his attention. Edward's eyes swept across the hallway and passed right over Bella, tucked in her corner behind a bank of lockers. But she could see him clearly from her vantage point, straight and tall, jeans hugging the curve of his ass, shirt buttoned up incorrectly. In fact, he had missed some buttons all together, exposing a sensational sliver of his golden, etched stomach, which was rising with each breath and compacting into tight, corded muscle with each exhale. Bella dragged her eyes away to see Edward swing his head from side to side once more, thumb scratching a tiny spot above his eyebrow before he turned his head and tossed a lopsided grin to—Jane? Yes, that was Jane Faire, a blonde senior, who was now reaching up to place her hands on his shoulders, whose tiny gymnast body was being lifted by just Edward's two hands to reach his height, who just…who just licked his ear! Edward released her and she skipped away, giggling, as he watched her depart.

_Edward and Jane?_ Bella fumed. There really was no girl above hooking up with him, no girl who could resist him. The revelation that Edward had hooked up with Jane, just the latest in his long list of conquests, reignited Bella's crazy theories and ideas that Edward was not your average, incredibly good looking, sinfully charming Romeo. She looked over to him again, now leaning against the wall, whistling. His lips were puckered and moist as he interrupted his tune to lick them. His stance pushed out his chest and she could see two sets of finely carved sinewy, diamond hard muscle through the buttons he had forgotten to do up. Bella felt her thoughts wavering—maybe it was possible that he really was just that irresistible. Maybe he was nothing more than a long, lean lothario. God knows that he was good looking enough, and he was so adept at perpetuating that mysterious aura that surrounded him and—

Bella's musings were rudely interrupted as her eyes widened. There, coming out of the same door that Jane had…was Renata, Forks' lone foreign exchange student! Being almost as tall as Edward, she didn't need to be lifted by him to place a searing kiss onto his smirking lips. He returned the kiss, pushing off the wall to stand straight and weaving his long fingers into her waist length, straight black hair. He tilted her head to kiss her more deeply, causing her to release a sound that could only be described as a mewl. He finally began to pull away, leaving barely an inch between their faces, only to smirk again—that is, if you could smirk while the person you had just been kissing was _still_ sucking on your bottom lip.

Renata released his lip with an audible pop and said in her thick Slavic accent, "I told Janey it would be a good idea."

Edward leered, his ember, amber eyes catching fire and burning with lust. "You girls are so creative with your… ideas. Don't ever stop…" he leaned in, eyes smoldering, his voice a slow burn with a low rumble in his throat as he ran his lips softly, teasingly over her cheekbone. "…using your imaginations." He pulled back and grinned as Renata, duly dismissed, walked away with a dazed, cloudy look on her face.

Edward's expression was pure sex as he resumed his stance against the wall. His head and shoulders were resting on the wall, but the rest of his body was angled outward. Between the perpetually seduced hair, the open buttons on his shirt and his succulent, swollen bottom lip, Bella wouldn't have been surprised if someone walked by and threw themselves onto his body—his steel hard, sinewy, coiled body—just because of the post-coital aura he was radiating. A part of her considered throwing herself at him but another, more insistent part of her couldn't help but think about that dorky, geeky boy, the god in front of her and how in Holy Heaven—or was it Hell?—that they could be the same. She wondered why Edward was still biding his time outside the classroom when—

Didyme._ Didyme too?_ Bella thought incredulously. The voluptuous redhead came out of the room and faced Edward, who didn't make a move to stand up straight this time. Her hair looked like a bird's nest, tangled with some pieces even standing almost straight up. Edward placed a hand on her flushed, flustered face, caressing her cheek with his thumb before sliding it down to her neck to run his finger over her clavicle. His hand moved lower, dripping down her arm and attaching itself to her waist just underneath her breast, his thumb sliding back and forth.

"I'm sorry," he said, voice low and husky, lust and sin resonating out of every syllable. "I forgot you had run into the closet to wait for me. Got a little caught up." He chuckled low and deep, and his eyes flared bright as he flashed the same look to Didyme that he had just given Renata. It worked just as well; Didyme sighed and ran her hand down his chest.

"It's okay," she said, mock pouting. She slid two fingers through the open buttons of his shirt and lightly caressed his stomach.

"Oh D," he said, the molten chocolate in his voice pouring itself all over Didyme as he tilted her chin upwards with his middle finger to meet her gaze. "I see that smile hiding. I bet you liked watching."

He nuzzled the crook of her neck, and she giggled as she pulled away from him. "I don't mind spectator sports. But I really excel at full contact games." With that, she pushed him through the door back into the room she had just emerged from, ready for play.

Bella couldn't believe her eyes. No. Scratch that. She couldn't believe her eyes when she'd seen Renata emerge from the room. Now, she just couldn't believe that any high school boy could have his own harem. He was like a fucking factory. No literally, a factory of fucking.

Her anger caused the blood to rush through her ears, thus making her unsure as to whether or not she was imagining Didyme's low, impassioned calls. As noises and accompanying images hurtled through her brain, Bella felt her pulse increasing like slow acceleration of a train, until it was throttling her towards an anger she had nowhere to direct to.

_Chug chug._

Edward appeared to have just had a threesome with Jane and Renata.

_Chug chug chug chug._

He was currently in that same room with Didyme.

_Chug chug chug chug chug chug_.

He was systematically working his way through the roster of randy, raunchy Forks females.

_Chug chug chug chug chug chug chug chug._

With one notable exception: herself.

_Choo choo! Choo choo!_

Bella's anger was so great she was surprised steam didn't spring from her ears like the caboose of a locomotive. She didn't know whether she was more incensed by Edward's behavior, his lack thereof towards her or her own preoccupation with either. But on the same track as her anger came one singular, focused thought—there was no way Edward Cullen was a normal, _human_ boy. And she'd be damned if she got distracted from that fact again. She'd be damned if she didn't get proof.

[-]

1) _Often react strangely in the presence of crucifixes, with documented and rumored behaviors ranging from ticks and spasms to spontaneous combustion._

The next day, Bella felt overly strange walking into biology wearing a crucifix around her neck. It made her feel conspicuous, like her conspiracy to smoke out Edward's true identity was blatant, but her anger and suspicion fueled her flimsy plan and fought her discomfort.

However, she couldn't dismiss her actions as fruitless because, from the moment that Edward watched her walk into the class, he stared at her necklace strangely. _This is it_, Bella thought. _He can't be near the cross_. In fact, he looked highly uncomfortable. He still looked supernaturally stunning, but his eyes were lidded like he was incredibly tired, his nostrils were flaring as he took unusually deep breaths and every few seconds he would tip his head backwards. He was jerking his head ever so slightly and couldn't seem to concentrate on anything or even finish his sentences.

Then, all of a sudden, he wrenched his head forward and let out a ghastly, booming noise.

A sneeze.

He lifted his head and sniffed lightly, saying, "Sorry. You know that feeling when you need to sneeze but it keeps on escaping. Man, that sucks." He shook his head as if to clear it, eyes bright and smile wide.

Bella felt her insides deflate... until she noticed that, every so often, Edward's eyes were still sliding over to her necklace. She kept her own eyes carefully on him, watching as he would stare at her necklace, taking a breath in, nostrils flaring, mouth hanging open slightly, tongue darting out to moisten his lips every few seconds. Then, as if he was catching himself, his eyes would quickly flick to Bella's, at which point she would promptly pretend to be engrossed in the assignment. But in reality, Bella barely remembered that she was in a class. Her mind was racing—Edward really was uncomfortable in the presence of a cross. She was positive it was only a matter of time before he displayed other traits of an incubus.

She could barely look at or speak to Edward for the rest of class—which was just as well since he seemed more in the mood for staring. They spent the remaining minutes of their class in silence, though Bella could barely focus for all the different thoughts racing through her head. If Edward truly was an incubus, then what other sort of creatures existed? Would she next discover that among her other classmates, someone was a werewolf? A vampire even? Although, it wasn't such a far stretch to imagine Lauren Mallory was a witch. And what should she do about Edward's… condition? Should she tell someone? _Could_ she tell someone? She wasn't sure she could say the words out loud.

As soon as the bell rang, Bella quickly gathered her stuff, wanting to avoid having to make any sort of talk, small or big, with Edward. But as she darted her eyes upward to check what he was doing, she saw only an empty chair. Edward had disappeared as quietly as always. It was only after class when Bella was in the girls' bathroom and looked in the mirror that she saw she had forgotten to button the top two clasps of her shirt. Her lacy blue bra could be seen clearly.

No wonder Edward hadn't been able to stop staring... at her chest, not her necklace. Frustrated, disappointed and mildly relieved, Bella pulled out her trusty notebook and put a little 'x' next to "aversion to crosses."

[-]

2) _Are often thought to be "allergic" to the color yellow in its bright forms as it mimics condensed daylight for these creatures that prefer night._

The next day, Bella entered her biology class feeling even more conspicuous and crazy than she had the day before. Not only had Edward had no reaction to the crucifix (just to her breasts), but she had to dig to the bottom of her closet to find the only yellow article of clothing she owned. It was a dress Renee had bought for her years ago, back when she had no breasts that she, let alone Edward, could see. The bodice was stretched tight, making her feel like her body was bound. Additionally, in trying to shimmy into the dress this morning, she had fallen over and bruised her shoulder on the corner of her dresser. Adding insult to her injury, the dress wasn't just yellow. It wasn't even just bright yellow. It was bordering-on-neon, brighter-than-Alice's-dad's-Porsche, mildly-retina-scalding yellow.

And Edward was grinning widely. He didn't look disturbed at all by the color of her dress. At first, Bella thought his grin might be directed at the fact that she pretty much flashed her bra to him yesterday. She waited, allowing time for his amusement to die so that he could show a reaction to the color she was wearing appropriate for what he was. But it never came and as she talked and listened to him, she heard the lark-like lilt in his voice—it was enchanting, encapsulating and deceptively entrapping, like his words were embracing her. Every few minutes, he would look over her, eyes roving up and down her guilelessly, his gentle, golden gaze warming her. His smile was wide and unwaning, not in the least like the leer he had given her yesterday. It was plain to see that Edward was unabashedly, unashamedly appreciative, in a way devoid of libidinousness, of Bella's look. He clearly liked her in yellow.

Depending on whose point of view you saw it from, Edward had passed (or failed) Bella's second test with flying colors. Well, just one color.

And, as if she wasn't confused enough by his behavior, when she arrived at her locker at the end of the day, there was a sunflower—bright as her dress and extremely rare in Forks—sticking out of her locker. When she looked around the hallway to see who might have left it, she spotted Edward at the far end of the hall, smiling at her. More than his subtle, self-satisfied smirk, this was a genuine, gorgeous grin, innocent and irresistible, much like the boy who wore it.

She surreptitiously pulled out her notebook and crossed out the second fact in her list. Only one fact remained.

[-]

3) _Those who were attacked often claimed that the demon had icy cold and unusually hard skin—however, this account is conflicting. While some accounts state that it was cold all over, others state that the frigid body temperature was concentrated in one particular area: its genitals._

Well, duh it would be hard around the genitals. That is sort of how the things worked, Bella thought sarcastically. She sipped her coffee and sighed. She had come to the coffee shop after school with the intention of getting some reading done, but she had not even pulled out her book yet. Mr. Wilde and Mr. Gray simply had nothing to hold her attention when compared to Mr. Cullen. She kept on reviewing the events of the past week—one of the strangest of her life—and analyzing the outcomes of her "experiments." Edward didn't have an aversion to crosses or yellow, that was clear. The only "test" that remained was the one she had counted on _not_ having to perform.

How would she ever find out if _it_ was cold? Especially since she couldn't even say what "it" was. Edward was jumping everyone's bones but hers... maybe she should just jump his (bone). Bella snorted out loud before she could even complete the utterly ridiculous thought of _her_ seducing Edward. The man at the table next to her stared.

"Sorry... funny book," she said, raising the object in her hands slightly to indicate what she was talking about. He continued to stare, both eyebrows raised this time. She looked down.

She was holding her coffee cup, nary a book or even a piece of paper in sight.

Deciding that her school work deserved at least a fraction of the attention she was devoting to her Nancy Drew emulation, she pulled out her novel of Faustian bargains and beautiful boys. But for every hedonistic act of Dorian's, every mention of his limitless beauty and unnatural grace, she could only imagine him as Edward.

By Biology class a few days later, Bella still hadn't figured out a way to observe the third characteristic, and she had run out of other traits to test. As much as the idea of Edward being an incubus scared her, she thought she would be more disappointed at this point if he was just a normal boy. Because then all these girls would be voluntarily hooking up with him. And that would mean that she, too, was voluntarily, devoid of any black magic, rather smitten with Edward.

Because then he really would be a rather indiscriminate slut.

And because then it would mean that he was choosing to hook up with all these other girls—and not her.

He was not just another guy. He _couldn't_ be.

So it was out of desperation to get _some_ sort of reaction from Edward that a few days later in Biology class, Bella began to sing.

"Earth to Bella, you think you've got it all figured in. Earth to Bella, everything you know is wrong, well almost…" She cringed inwardly at the look on Edward's face, halfway between incredulous and horrified. She knew she was somehow both toneless and out of tune but, like so many times she was around Edward, she had undertaken an action so silly and stupid that there was no way to cover it up.

Edward was smiling at her, his height affording him the ability to literally and metaphorically look down on her. He nudged her shoulder playfully, raised his eyebrows and said, "You're not trying out for glee club, are you?" His words rolled and bounced, like chuckles, and he nudged her shoulder lightly again. Unbidden, she found her body following his as it retreated away, craving his warm solid weight, her smile growing in the warmth of his expression.

"No… that's just one of my favorite songs. _Earth to Bella_. So fitting. It's by Incubus," she said, trying as subtly as possible to stress the name of the band. She couldn't believe how lame she was, trying to incite a response from Edward by mentioning that name. "Do you like that band? _Incubus?_"

But to her surprise, Edward's smile melted off his face. His plump lips thinned into a stern line, his eyebrows furrowed low on his face and his eyes lost their merriment and mirth. His answer was so short, it was almost rude.

"No, I don't." He leaned away from her, the warmth of his body and his demeanor replaced with a frosty silence and cold bewilderment for Bella.

The bell rang and he muttered a goodbye to her before stalking out the door, leaving Bella to her befuddlement in his wake. After not being "allergic" to crucifixes or the color yellow, could she really take this—her mere mention of the word—as an indication that Edward was an incubus?

As she walked to the library for her free period, she realized his short, sullen answer about the band Incubus could really just be his hatred for the band. She sat down in an empty section and pulled out her laptop. She went to her bookmarked page and began to read more about incubi, seeing many facts that she had so conveniently overlooked—like the fact that victims of incubi often appeared listless and without vitality. If anything, it was easy to spot a girl who had been with Edward. For the most part, their eyes were bright and aloft, cheeks blushing and beaming—and, of course, the giggles. Oh, the giggles. Another fact she had ignored in her selective research was that incubi tended to repeat their victims—as far as she knew, Edward had _not _hooked up with the same girl twice. In fact, if Bella had had the sense to realize it, the only girl he seemed to have repeatedly paid attention to was… her. But Bella didn't realize this because her head was too filled with nonsensical thoughts. She resigned herself to the fact that whatever the source of his mysterious metamorphosis, Edward wasn't, despite her numerous, clearly infallible tests, an incubus.

He was just an asshole.

A gorgeous asshole. A gorgeous, strangely mysterious asshole. A gorgeous, strangely mysterious, deliciously intelligent, incredibly intriguing asshole. A gorgeous, strangely mysterious, deliciously intelligent, incredibly intriguing, threesome having, student-body seducing, golden-eyed asshole.

The worst kind of asshole.

It was a few days later, while talking to her friend Jacob Black, that Bella realized she might have been wrong about Edward Cullen, yet again.

[-]

_Open up your mind, let your fantasies unwind…_

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A/n: Most importantly, thank you for reading. I appreciate everyone who is reading, and especially everyone who is reviewing and sharing their thoughts. Hearing your words makes mine worthwhile :)

The whole "how to spot an incubus" facts list is a weird twisting of random facts and my imagination for the purpose of this story. If you need to identify an incubus, please do not use it as a guide. Instead, contact me and in addition to the wealth of knowledge I now possess about sex demons, we can talk about me writing your biography.

If you are under a rock and haven't heard, Quothme has been all over the place, including a rec for her fabulous _Awake In the Infinite Cold _on TLYDF. She, like Edward, gives as good as she gets and wrote a rec for _Legendary_ on on the Little Known Ficster. The link is on my profile.


	7. Chapter 6: Edward Cullen

**A/N****:** All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended. However, I, under the penname listed above, do own this story, plot and its variations. I prefer it not to be plagiarized and thank you in advance.

This spot will always be for Quoda or as you all know her, QuothMe. That's my beta bitch! (Er... I mean, that's my beta, bitch. Commas are important!) She is kind, supportive and brilliant.

* * *

**Chapter Six  
**

There was a time when Edward could walk through Forks High unnoticed for the entire day, save for when attendance was called in classes. In fact, it was only a short time ago, hardly a few months, when Bella, who nowadays was never far from a straying thought about him, barely acknowledged him.

Back then, it was more than typical, but rather inevitable, that Edward would be alone during lunch, his free period or generally any time not spent in class. One such day, Edward had sat on the bench, watching students pass by him as if he was sequestered, rather than sitting out in the open. Behind the safe solace his thick glasses provided, his eyes darted from student to student, almost like a plea for someone to meet his gaze. He drank in everything he saw, ears lapping up every word he heard. Years of solitude had made him a keen observer of social circles rather than a joyous participant. But no one noticed him, too busy with their friends, lives and loves to see the invisible boy in the corner. This Edward was still molting, not yet reborn, not yet risen, skin still ashy, plumes still muted, legend still dormant.

He sighed, a strand of hair leaving its greasy mates to rest at the apex of his lips. He adjusted his kaleidoscopic-colored sweater, running his hands down each arm, remembering how the infomercial had boasted that the material "became softer the more you stroked it." He snickered, thinking how that was exactly the opposite reaction that was generally expected. Sighing, he stooped over the open book in his hands, interspersing Mr. Wilde and Mr. Gray's comments on life and social status with darting looks to see if he could locate the person he had abandoned his usual post in the library for. He read as the titular character shamelessly sought sin after sin, embraced hedonism head on and flouted fate to follow into his Faustian-bought future.

"When we are happy, we are always good. But when we are good, we are not always happy," Dorian proudly boasted. Edward wondered what it would be like to live like Dorian—to be _not good_. He wondered what it would be like to be seen and sought. What it would be like to have a casual conversation with a classmate. What it would be like to have a friend, just one single person. But as he wondered and his thoughts wandered, his attention was handily returned back to the sight in front of him.

Bella Swan, with all the grace both her names would suggest, was walking with her friends, Alice and Rosalie, and the latter's behemoth boyfriend, Emmett. Emmett's undeniable presence caused Edward unease as he didn't want to approach Bella with him around. Emmett had never picked on Edward, never shoved him into a locker, or given him a wedgie. No, for that to have occurred, Emmett—or anyone else for that matter—would actually have to notice him. For all his prevalence (or rather lack thereof), Edward might as well have never moved back to Forks. His anonymity was acutely, achingly astounding.

But Edward was in luck, as Emmett bid the girls goodbye and dashed off in the opposite direction. He watched surreptitiously as Emmett rounded the building, out of the girls' eye line but still within Edward's, and slung an arm around Lauren Mallory. As if fated, the three remaining girls stopped a few feet away from where Edward was seated, but paid him no mind. He couldn't help but appreciate the sight in front of him—three beautiful girls, all of different shapes, shades and sizes, each as stunning as the other. It made his task of approaching one that much harder, but he valued his grades—the only thing going for him at school—too much to let it slide.

"Uh, Bell—Bella?" Edward had to clear his throat mid-sentence, almost as if he had forgotten how to speak from disuse of his voice. All three girls turned to him, but Rosalie and Alice barely afforded him a glance before turning back to Bella. Without bothering to give them a reason why Edward was calling her—for Rosalie and Alice didn't really care—Bella took the few steps toward his table.

"Hi, Edward." Her voice was neither dismissive nor welcoming. Despite the desperation that dripped from Edward to be noticed by her, absolute indifference dominated her tone.

"I was just wondering," he said, but stopped when he realized she wasn't looking at him. That was nothing out of the ordinary—Edward sometimes wondered if the entire student body was allergic to making eye contact with him. What stopped him was the salacious stupor Bella was in, staring over his shoulder like she had seen the savior. As he turned to see what had stolen her tenuous attention, he realized he wasn't so far off—Forks' lord of the lay, Jasper Whitlock, was running on the field, sweaty and breathy.

Edward frowned. "Bella? Bella!" With a start, she turned her attention back to him, but her eyes kept darting over his shoulder. "I was just wondering—do you want to work on our History project after school? We haven't even chosen a myth or legend yet and… um, Bella? May I, um, may I please have your attention? For just a second?" Edward's attempt at assertion was rather abysmal.

"Um, yeah, sure, Edward," Bella replied dismissively.

"Yes, I can have your attention?" Edward asked, somehow tentative, hopeful and skeptical all at once; despite her answer, Bella's eyes had barely wandered from over his shoulder.

"Um, no," Bella replied. Then, realizing what she had just said, she shook her head slightly and continued, "Uh, sorry. I meant yes, let's work on it after school. I'll meet you in the library?" Before Edward could nod, she had turned back to her friends, giggling and glancing over her shoulder, right past him.

He sighed, watching her walk away before returning his attention to his book to find Oscar Wilde asserting that, "There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." He found himself wholeheartedly, desperately agreeing.

So, yes. There was pretty much an entire year during which Edward and everything he did went unnoticed. Suffice to say, as he ran laps after school to make up for a gym class he'd missed, shirtless in the rain, that was no longer the case.

When some people run, they look a little strange. As if maybe their limbs have detached slightly from their sockets, causing a gangly mangle of angled arms and legs. Some look as if perhaps one side of their body weighs more than the other, giving them a laughable lilt. Others are like a newly born fawn, fighting with the tugging of gravity and struggling with their own mass, on shaky knees and quaking ankles.

Edward Cullen was none of those people.

Edward Cullen was poetry in motion.

Correction. Edward Cullen was shirtless, perfect poetry in misting, rainy motion. He ran in a nimble, limber lope, one foot lifting off the ground just as the other began to fall toward it, a perfect, measured cycle. The drops of rain mingled with the sweat across his chest, sliding down in lucky, linear lines along his body. Six plates of hard muscle stayed stoic on his abdomen as the rest of his body moved, as if cleaved and carved by a creative crafter for aesthetic arousal. His body was liquid gold, smooth and solid except for a light line of tawny hair, flattened and spread greedily against the soft skin of his hard belly, veering down vertically into the waistband of his shorts. The diamond-cut dimensions of his jutting pelvic bone pointed in the same direction. His back stretched and shifted, golden gossamer skin like a blanket covering trembling tendons and ligaments as they rolled and rocked with his movements. His spine stretched down, a perpendicular horizon reaching from the base of his neck, each ridge minutely marking a step on the path down to his derriere.

Bella, who had decided to study late that day, stepped out of the library into the drizzle just as Edward completed his last lap. Holding a water bottle, he guzzled some of its contents, then opened the top and dumped most of it on his matted hair. Bella watched the sight with a sigh drifting out of her open mouth, feeling perverted yet privileged to be privy to the visage before her. The sight in front of her was so primal, so… practically pornographic that she felt the need to look down and away, lest her corneas be burnt off from directly looking at the scorching sight of Edward. But she couldn't help but look up again. And again. And again.

And again.

Finally, she realized that should she continue staring, there were two things that might happen. One, Edward might catch her—which frankly didn't embarrass her too much. If Forks High School had been the Louvre, a most incongruent comparison, Edward would have been the Mona Lisa; if it had been the NFL season, Edward would have been the Superbowl; if FHS had been a sexual encounter, then Edward was the climax. He was the main attraction, meant to be stared at and admired. No, she thought as she began moving quickly across the campus towards her vehicle—the danger would be from the fact that Edward would most likely attempt to talk to her with no care as to his state of undress, which had currently caused her to regress to a drooling, mentally babbling idiot who could barely string two thoughts together, let alone several words.

With that reasoning, she breathed a sigh of relief as she reached her truck and peeled out of the lot—but not before she decided that she should tighten her shoelace immediately. She stooped down to do so—coincidentally at the edge of the parking lot, which had a vantage view of the track. This was purely incidental, of course. As was the fact that she was wearing rain boots.

Despite the weirdness of the previous week, or perhaps because of it, Bella had woken up the Monday following the culmination (and failure) of her intrepid incubus experiment with a new attitude. As she turned off her clock radio, she had sat up in bed and contemplated the room around her with her eyes, while contemplating life with her mind. She did her best to shrug off her wary, wandering feelings about Him and decided to embrace life as it was—fairly good. She was cherished by her parents, she was in good health and she had a safe, happy home. She was one of those rare teenagers who actually enjoyed learning and didn't look at high school as the bane of her existence. She had great friends in Alice and Rosalie (who He had slept with), she was fairly pretty (but not pretty enough for _Some, _apparently) and while she had not found the love of her life, she had, in her past experiences, known the tremulous tug of tender teenage infatuation. She had no current prospects (maybe if You-Know-Who stopped sleeping with everyone who wasn't her and showed some unambiguous interest)…

And then Bella had sighed and flopped back down on to her mattress. Like her experiment, her efforts not to think of the boy she had vowed not to think of had failed.

Of course, the universe is not without a sense of irony. And so it was the same day that Bella made the resolution not to think of Edward that he decided to conveniently run shirtless after school, the same day that Bella had stayed late to complete some work in the library.

And, as if that image constantly running around her pathetically aroused teenage mind wasn't enough to break her will, she was greeted with a similar, albeit less titillating sight a few days later: a soaked, but fully clothed Edward at her front door. He had been driving when the heavy rain—the same weather that had detained Charlie at work—had begun and did not want to risk an accident.

And so Bella found herself in a situation she had never imagined—her and a probably partially naked Edward Cullen under the same roof, separated only by the thin wooden door of the guest bathroom. Which she currently was standing outside, her feet unmoving as if molded into the hardwood flooring. Even by Forks' standards, the rain outside was blanketing, coming down in blinding sheets that would blindfold any driver. It was a lucky coincidence that Edward had decided to stop driving through it right outside her house… wasn't it? As she heard the slippery slap of what was most probably Edward's soaked shirt hitting the counter, she decided it was serendipity (most probably a woman herself who could appreciate the sight of sodden Edward) that had brought him to her door. But now, she had a little problem. Now that he was here, she hadn't the faintest idea of what to do with him.

Alright, she had some ideas, and just imagining them did make her a little faint. Bella reeled her imagination in before it veered too far down _that_ particular path.

Settling for a more… tame option, Bella put on a pot of tea and hoped that Edward would be satisfied with watching a Gossip Girl marathon under a warm blanket, as she had been doing before he arrived. When he emerged, swathed in one of Charlie's old t-shirts, running the towel she had given him through his hair, he thanked her for providing him shelter. She replied by handing him a cup of tea and telling him that he would pay a price—he was about to be subjected to watching the hyperbolic, campy misadventures of a group of so-called teens who looked and acted like they were in their mid-20's. He laughed his acquiescence and they settled down in the living room, her on an old worn arm chair and him making the most of her hospitality and stretching out on the couch. The smug narration of the show and splattering of the rain on the roof was the only noise between them.

Edward seemed comfortable enough, lying down and watching the show, but the lack of conversation was unnerving Bella. She was hardly one of those people who had the incessant need to fill silences—she was, after all, Charlie Swan's daughter. But having Edward here to herself, with no biology labs, no staring squads, _no other girls_, seemed like too good of an opportunity to pass up. This might be the only chance she would have to have a real conversation with Edward.

Unfortunately, Bella wasn't so good at "real conversations" and even poorer at starting them. So she relied on something slightly less mature, a little more whimsical. She ventured into the conversation the only way she could think of.

"You want to play 'twenty questions' to get to know each other?" Edward asked. "Isn't that a bit juvenile?"

"No! It's a good way to find out things you never knew about someone," Bella said. Like, hey Edward, ever have a threesome in the AV room? As if she were telepathically projecting her pathetic thoughts, he spoke his next words.

"I can think of another way to find out something you might never have known about someone." He grinned rakishly at her, but upon seeing her stern expression, he quickly retreated away from innuendo.

"I'll ask a few questions and then you can ask a few, okay? And then we'll switch again," Bella's innate organizer said.

"Fine, fine. Ask away."

Bella considered her first question. "Well, I already know who your favorite author is. Do you have a favorite work of literature?"

Edward nodded. "_A Picture of Dorian Gray_."

"No way, we're reading that in English Lit right now."

"Seriously? I should take this class next semester. A couple weeks ago, Tennessee Williams, now Oscar Wilde—the syllabus reads like my 'favorites' list," he said. Bella was just about to answer when a thought struck her. As long as he'd been at school, Edward had always made the Dean's Roll, the highest academic achievement in school. She had no doubt that his intelligence had not abated, but wondered if his intensive extracurricular activities, like those that took place in the AV room after school or the shop class garage at lunch, had distracted him.

"Alright. I'm getting nosy. Are you still making Dean's Roll this semester?" she asked haughtily. Edward's eyebrow arched and his smile arced, but he said nothing of her tone.

"Um, yeah I think so. I… uh, well I _like_ school," he confessed. It was the first time Bella had seen sheepishness seep into his expression, almost like he was embarrassed to reveal this to her.

"Well, you're really good at it," she said. He was still studying the color of the carpet like it would be on one of his finals, so she decided to give him a bit of a reprieve. "I like school, too." He looked up and grinned at her excitedly, like she had just revealed a love for his favorite band as opposed to education. And speaking of his favorite band…

She swallowed three gulps of air before asking her next question. "Why don't you like Incubus?" Her eyes widened and she quickly tacked on, "the band! Incubus, the band."

Edward frowned at her. "Well, obviously you mean Incubus the band." His next words were deliberate. "What else would you mean?"

"Um, nothing. Just clarifying. You know, Incubus. The band…" Bella trailed off.

Edward laughed. "Yes, Incubus the band as opposed to incubus, a sex demon. _That_ would be an interesting conversation. Hey, Edward, how do you feel about sex demons?" He chuckled, his seeming levity over his words contradicted by the peculiar way he peered at Bella after cracking his joke.

Bella, for her part, was kicking herself, wondering why she had been foolish enough to even say the "I" word around Edward. It wasn't that she still suspected him of being one—it was more that, in the wake of her inane antics last week, she was irrationally, irrepressibly frightened that Someone might have recognized that her madness had a method to it. And she sincerely doubted that there had been a worse method to finding out Edward's secrets, whatever they may be, than hers.

She decided a change of subject was in order. "Why is _Dorian Gray_ your favorite?"

If he noticed or was perturbed by her abrupt question, he didn't mention it. "Well, honestly, I like the moral dilemma that Dorian faces." Bella raised her eyebrow in indication for him to continue. "It's just… if we had that choice, can we honestly say that we would choose differently? The idea of a soul, of morality, it's all so subjective and man-made. When faced with the Faustian choice—a life now for your soul later—it kind of makes you wonder. Does a soul exist? Or is it a manmade construction of religion and doctrine to keep us in line in this life while preying on our fear of retribution in a next life or afterlife that may or may not exist?"

Bella blinked. This was perhaps the most she had ever heard Edward speak at one go. "So you don't think that we have souls, that there is no heaven or hell?"

"No, I'm not saying that. I don't really know what I believe. What I'm trying to say is—you've read _Faustus_ right?" Bella nodded. "In _Faustus_, it is the Devil Faustus is making a deal with. Marlow is clearly saying this is wrong. But in _Dorian_, there is no clear villain. Dorian doesn't ever actually make a deal with anyone—he merely embraces hedonism and it is reflected in the picture. In fact, even at the end, he doesn't become better when he repents—his portrait doesn't heal. It makes you wonder if Wilde was encouraging hedonism."

As Bella fell silent to contemplate Edward's ideas, Gossip Girl took that moment to pipe up from the TV and say, "As you might have guessed, Upper East Siders, prohibition never stood a chance against exhibition. It's human nature to be free." They both stared suspiciously at the TV before Edward turned to Bella, one eyebrow raised as if to say, "see?"

"But Dorian dies at the end," Bella insisted.

"And how does he die, Bella? When he tries to stab the mark of his sins, his portrait. When he tries to rid the evidence of who he really is—I think that Wilde was not criticizing hedonism, but criticizing duplicity—of people who say one thing and do another. Of people—in this case, Dorian in society—who pretends to be an outstanding citizen, while his private persona was something completely different. Wilde, to me, was making a comment on hypocrisy."

Bella cleared her throat. She had always known he was intelligent, but she was furthermore impressed with his take on the story and swayed by the delivery of his argument; he was passionate but not overbearing. "I think I just found the topic for my Wilde essay." She grinned at him and he returned her smile with ease.

"Oh yeah? Are you going to have a _Wilde_ time writing about it? It's not going to be dull and _Gray_?" Edward waggled his eyebrows at his pathetic puns. Bella tried not to laugh, but resulted in snorting instead, which caused Edward to laugh, too.

She was surprised at the ease she felt around Edward. Despite him keying her up so much of the time, she realized that was when she was just paying attention to his appearance. Edward was disarmingly easy to talk to.

"Alright, alright. Enough of my questions. You have any of your own?" Bella said. She had a split second day dream in which Edward stood from the couch, declared that all his infamous indiscretions were actually pure rumor and that she was the only girl for him. It wasn't a question, but hey, a girl could dream.

Predictably, Edward went in a different direction. "Which chair is your favorite to sit in?" he asked. Bella's brow furrowed at the strange question but she answered him amiably.

"This one, actually," she said, slapping the ragged brown flannel arm of her seat. "But I don't sit in it very often."

"Why not?"

"Well, it's my dad's favorite chair, too, so I let him sit in it. Plus, he's always watching sports and I like quiet. I don't mind. When I'm down here, I sit on the couch. It's pretty comfortable," Bella replied. Edward let out a heavenly hum in agreement and wiggled wildly down into the cushions a little more, causing Bella to giggle. His smile grew at her laugh. "Next question?"

"Nope. No more questions," he said, shrugging his shoulders. He stretched his arms upwards, lengthening his legs and aligning his body into a long, lean line. Bella marveled at his protracted profile, noting how he wasn't bulky but his body gave the look of being fit. He was like a sports car, his aesthetic hiding, yet still hinting at, an agile athleticism.

"You don't have any more questions?" Bella asked, begrudgingly hedging her attention back to their conversation.

"Not really. I mean, your answer told me a lot about you," he said, provokingly pithy in his answer.

"My favorite chair in the house told you a lot about me?" Bella challenged. "What did it tell you?"

"Well, it told me that you're agreeable, sacrificing and empathetic, a bit of a homebody… and that you don't care much for sports," he listed casually. Bella's mouth hung slightly agape. While the first part of his statement was subjective, he was definitely right about his last two statements.

"You got that from 'my favorite chair is this one'?" She repeated her action and slapped on the arm, a habit she had retained from childhood when she used to hit the chair to indicate her dislike for whatever show was on the TV.

"Well, yeah." Edward sat up and met Bella's eye. "You actually know which chair you like in order of preference, implying you've spent a decent amount of time in this room. Homebody. You like silence when you study. Homebody—or future librarian, I can't decide. " Bella laughed at his teasing tone. "You like the chair, but you give it up for your dad because he likes it, too, and you like to see him comfortable. Sacrificing. You like to see your dad comfortable most probably because you know he works hard and likes to unwind. That's probably also why you let him watch sports. Empathetic. You're perfectly happy to sit in the second best chair in the house or relocate to study so your dad can do what he wants. Agreeable. You like quiet, basically the kiss of death for any sport except for golf; hence, you're not into sports." He shrugged, as if to dismiss his words, but his attempt at casualness was betrayed by his eyelashes, which fluttered up quickly to see her reaction, whether she agreed or not with his assessment.

Bella didn't know what to say. Edward was actually correct in his guesses about her reasoning—and while _empathetic_ or _sacrificing_ weren't words she'd use to describe herself, she couldn't say they were incorrect either. "Wow… I guess you're right." It was a weak answer but the only one she could give.

"I am right," he said confidently as his eyes met hers. Then, softly, gently, he continued, "I get you, Bella. I see you." And in that moment, she felt like he did see her, clear and to her core, trembling under the force of his sticky and sweet honeyed gaze, making her buzz and bumble. In that moment, she saw the rarest of creatures—a boy who heard her and was able to appreciate the meter and measure of her mouth but listened to her lips like her language was his literature.

She didn't know if this was it—this was that hidden talent that emerged unbidden to charm every woman he met—but in that moment, she knew something else. She knew why she had nearly driven herself crazy and risked giving everyone else the impression that she was already insane to find out what Edward was. Why she was simultaneously disappointed and relieved when her experiments produced no results. Why, despite wanting to major in English, Biology was her favorite class.

Edward _was_ irresistible. She frowned inwardly. If only he had remained the shy, sweet lab partner she had last year, then he would be perfect. What she failed to realize was that was exactly who he had been—and exactly who she had ignored.

Wanting to liven up the mood with levity, she said, "Wow. Ever consider being a psychiatrist?"

Edward let out a laugh. "Maybe. I tend to overanalyze everything. If I ever become one, I'd want a couch just like this one," he said, patting the cushion below him. Their attention was redirected to the television, where it appeared that one character was shrieking about her boyfriend having illicit affair with his stepmother.

With such fascinating drama unfolding in front of them, they both watched the television in silence for the next half an hour or so, half-heartedly paying attention to the show, while contemplating each other. Bella wished they still were asking questions—there was so much she wanted to ask him, both in getting to know him better and about his more infamous escapades, but there was only one question she really couldn't keep in any longer.

"Edward, why?"

Why are you hooking up with all these girls? Why doesn't anybody seem to be able to say no to you? Why haven't you ever made a move on me? And why oh why, despite all that, are you sitting here in my living room being completely enjoyable company? These questions were so different from the "what's" of last week.

Bella audibly asked only the first one, but her brown eyes begged the answers of him. He met her gaze head on, freezing her motions like a deer in two golden headlights and simply shrugged before looking away.

'"Nothing is ever quite true,'" Edward stated ambiguously. It was the kind of non-answer Edward always seemed to give when questions cut too close to him. And in this case, the answer wasn't even his.

"That's a quote from _Dorian Gray_," Bella stated.

"Well done!" he said with genuine admiration for her literary knowledge.

Bella huffed. "Oscar Wilde is not an answer."

"And 'Why?' is not a question," he shot back. His statement was clear. If you want to handle my answers, you have to handle asking the question. But she couldn't, and so she didn't. Quietly, almost like a sigh, he said, somewhat relenting, '"There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.'" But Bella, as she was prone to do, missed the significance of his words.

"You're quoting Wilde again, aren't you?" she accused.

"And you're recognizing Wilde again, aren't you?" Edward retorted. She narrowed her eyes in a faked frustration—truthfully, Edward's immense intelligence had piqued not only her interest but also her attraction. But his habits—both in his prevalent pollination of Forks' panties and his evasiveness—had prodded her ire. She missed the lightness of their earlier conversation but his ambiguity was unbearable.

Edward was like a shadow, allowing her to get close enough to give the illusion of proximity, and then dancing away, leaving her with nothing to do but chase him. And she was frustrated. She was frustrated with his behavior and his brilliance and frustrated with her disdain toward the former and her desire for the latter. His next words interrupted her thoughts.

"Looks like the rain has let up. I'm going to head home," he said. Before she could say anything, he was up and heading toward her front door. She stood and followed him.

He bent to slip on his black Converse, lined up neatly next to Bella's matching pair. Instead, he turned to her. An insensible amount of delight in his eyes belied his serious tone.

"Do you know what this means, Bella?"

She looked at him blankly. "What?"

He reached down and picked up her left shoe and his right, holding the bottoms against each other.

"We're sole mates!" He began laughing, almost maniacally, at his horrid joke, instantly dispelling the tense atmosphere. Bella tried to keep a straight face, but his mirth pervaded, causing her to shake her head as she grinned at him.

"Does anybody else know that you crack really bad jokes?" Bella asked between laughs.

He was suddenly serious again. "I don't really talk to anyone else." If Bella could have known him back then, she would have recognized the little boy from the swings, the one who sat on the bench unseen. As if by divine intervention, the narrator on TV, the pithy, witty Gossip Girl, intoned, "What was it we say about appearances? Yes, they can be deceiving. But most of the time, what you see is what you get."

Both their eyes slid over to the TV, which hadn't seemed so loud even when they were sitting in the living room. By the time Bella turned back to Edward, he was out the front door, waving goodbye to her.

"Drive safe, Edward!" she called out.

"Thank you!" he replied. He paused with his body half in and half out of the car. "I had a nice time getting to know you, Bella." And then he grinned, wide and toothy, nose scrunched, eyes squinting, tiny laugh lines emanating from their apexes. It wasn't his most beautiful smile, but it was one Bella had never seen before, and it stole her breath in an altogether new way.

She shut her front door, sagging against it as she heard him drive away. She _really_ had had a nice time getting to know—if one could call it that—Edward. Sweet, intelligent, easy to talk to, Edward.

If only he hadn't been the town bicycle, with every girl having a ride. Or at least, if he had maintained some sort of subtlety about it—for God's sake, she had heard about so many of his conquests from the girls in her school, she felt like the Forks High hallway was one big locker room.

If not for those things, Bella thought that Edward might have been the perfect man for her.

A few days later, she was sitting with Jacob when the topic turned to Leah Clearwater and a long-standing joke among his friends that she may have a demon akin to a succubus herself. That was when Bella should have realized that while her instincts may have been right, she had been looking left. That instead of observing Edward, perhaps Leah, and possibly Seth, and that mystical, mid-summer makeover might have been the key to unlocking Edward's mystery.

But she hadn't realized it then, too enamored with possibility, too excited to see the beautiful boy who only talked to her. No, she hadn't realized till much after that conversation with Jacob, at a point where it may have been too late.

But that was still days and weeks away. For now, it was just Bella, the gentle patter of light rain and the spookily omniscient narrator on the television as she intoned, "In life, as in art, some endings are bittersweet. Especially when it comes to love. Sometimes fate throws two lovers together only to rip them apart. Sometimes the hero finally makes the right choice but the timing is all wrong. And, as they say, timing is everything."

[-]

_Let your soul take you where you long to be,_

_Only then, can you belong to me. _

* * *

A/n: As always, first and foremost, thank you for reading.

I caved and am on Twitter now. Follow me whatsmynom. I'd love to hear what you have to say, whether its about Legendary or not.

A special thank you must go out to SunKing who has shown much support to my story and much kindness to me. She is truly a star, who recently won a Judges' Choice Indie for her short story, _Brave_ and writes _Pretend He's Not There_, a lovely, original fic that has me on the edge of my chair/bed/whatever I'm sitting on when I read.

Another rec: the woefully under-read _C56_ by ss10. I love _C56_'s Edward.


	8. Chapter 7: Lives

**A/n:** All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended. However, I, under the penname listed above, do own this story, plot and its variations. I prefer it not to be plagiarized and thank you in advance.

Buckets of bountiful gratitude to my Boggled, beautiful beta Quothme. Nerdward belongs to her. Heart, soul and bowl cut.

Thank you to everyone who is reading, reviewing and reccing. They inspire and delight me.

I recced the stunning _And With Thee Fade Away_ on the Little Known Ficster. Don't bother my the rec, just read the story, it's _brilliant_.

You may know that I posted outtakes under a new story called _A Living Legend._ There will be more coming, so alert it if you feel like it.

Please note that while much of the information in this story is based on fact, it's got a fair amount of twisting under creative license. No harm is intended.

* * *

**Chapter 7**

There's nothing like a teenager's outlook on life. For them, every moment, every opportunity, every event is treated like their last, like life or death, like do or die. They're all James Dean, dreaming as if they'd live forever, living as if they might perish the very next day.

And because of that outlook, there's nothing quite like a teenager's enthusiasm. Especially for school dances. Dances represented the best and worst of high school: the soaring expectations and the crippling rejections; the tender brush of first (or second or third) love and the wondering of whether they'll get to first (or second or third) base; the clothes and the company, the music and the moments—all of this and so much more made up that holy grail of high school happenings. And of all dances to warrant importance, it was the last dance of the year that always received the most excitement.

And so it was with the dance coming up. Hopes for it didn't wane, even when the administrative staff announced that due to a parent's complaint (and by parent, they meant Reverend Weber), no one would be allowed to take a date. Further stating that the practice of holding a dance that automatically forced students to choose among their peers which encouraged ostracism, even long-time couples like Angela Weber and Ben Cheney (nicknamed The Children of Chastity) weren't allowed to attend the dance together. Everyone was to go stag, as dates were forbidden.

But to forbid something to teenagers is to guarantee it. So the latest trend to hit FHS was to find the perfect way to _not_ ask someone to the dance. There was so much effort put into stealthily approaching and obtaining a non-date that even the gossip about who was (or as it were, 'wasn't') attending with whom was told in whispers. And since there was no one who was a better dirty dancer, no one who could execute a prevaricating polka or a tergiversate tango more skillfully than Edward Cullen, the foremost question on the quivering females' minds became:

Who was Edward Cullen _not_ going to ask to the dance?

[-]

Bella was sitting in the Forks Diner, having her monthly dinner with her old friend, Jacob Black. Jake was rather important to her, being her oldest friend. Although he had hinted on more than one occasion that he might like to be more than merely her oldest friend, he was like sunshine—warm and bright but also everyday and expected. There was nothing about him that excited her like the dark, moonless night of Edward, with all his mystery and secrets. But despite her lukewarm feelings toward Jake romantically, she would always hold him dear to her heart platonically. With Jake, conversation was never forced or stilted, jokes and teasing never too serious. He never got upset if Bella had to change plans or reschedule. Being friends with him was easy, like breathing. And so, even though they hadn't seen each other in some time, they chattered on amiably until Jake excused himself to the restroom. He had just slid out of the seat across from her when an unexpected body slid into it.

She jumped. "Oh, Edward! I'm sorry, I didn't see you."

"It's okay." Then continuing in a mutter too muted for Bella to hear, "It's not the first time."

"I'm glad I ran into you, Bella," he said, reverting to his regular volume, his smirk twirling the corners of his lips upward. His voice was cool and fluid, washing over her like a monsoon rain and molding itself into the crevices of her body—tucking behind the shell of her ear, brushing in the hollow of her clavicle, nuzzling down the valley of her breasts, threading through the gaps between her fingers, licking behind her knees and nudging itself between her legs.

As his smirk morphed into a genuine smile, Bella couldn't help but let the flutter in her stomach (and lower) spread to her heart.

"You are?" she said, paradoxically ducking her head while meeting his eyes. "What can I do for you, Edward?"

Edward made a tutting noise. "Ask not what you can do for Edward Cullen. Ask what Edward Cullen can do for you."

Bella giggled despite herself. Edward's puns were rather ridiculous. "Fine, what can Edward Cullen do for me?"

His left eyebrow popped up.

It was like dirty, wayward thoughts were directly correlated with the level of his eyebrows. As soon as that errant brow rose, thoughts of just what Edward Cullen could do for her, with her, to her swirled around her head, unbidden, uncensored, unadulterated... but very adult.

"Well, I'm guessing you've heard about a certain dance that may or may not be taking place this Friday," Edward said. Bella nodded as she fought the urge to snort. It was all that anyone at school could talk about. Rosalie and Alice had already dismissed it as unworthy of their attention—Rose claimed that she had no reason to go to an event where she couldn't make Emmett as bitter as McCarthy with jealousy, and Alice was going out of town. Hence, Bella had figured that, without her cohorts, she had no reason to attend.

Until now.

"Yes, I have."

"Then you know about this 'no dates' idiocy the school is peddling," Edward continued. She nodded. "Well, then I have to ask…no one has not asked you to the dance yet, right?"

She thought she knew what he was asking, but couldn't quite comprehend it. "Huh?"

"Yeah, ignore the double negatives. What I'm really asking is," Edward took a deep breath and smiled at her before continuing, "will you not go to the dance with me?"

His brow furrowed at the same time as Bella's. "Uhh…"

"What I meant was, and pardon the poor grammar, will you go to the dance not with me?" Edward said, a laugh in his voice. Bella giggled. And then quickly realized that, not only was Edward waiting for an answer, but, out of all the girls in school, out of literally any one of them who was ripe for his picking and those that may have already picked, Edward Cullen had asked _her_ to the dance.

"Yes, Edward. I will go to the dance not with you." They both laughed.

"Now, I can't pick you up because that might give people the idea that we're going together, and since we're not going together, we wouldn't want that." He leaned over to grasp her hand before continuing, "We wouldn't want anyone to see me pull up in your driveway and knock on your door, nervous as hell. We wouldn't want them to hear me tell your father that I have completely honorable intentions toward you or that I will have you back by your curfew. We wouldn't want them to see me be unable to stop smiling because I'm so damn excited to go to this lame thing simply because you'll be there with me."

"No," Bella echoed, breathless from his breathtaking words. But more than his words, it was his expression: there was no trace of his usual sensuous smile or purring, poetic prose. Only his refined golden gaze, unyielding and honest, connecting them and conducting an almost tangible electricity between them. "We wouldn't want that."

She couldn't have looked away from him if he had begged her to. But the bustle and the busy banging of the diner brought them out of their daze, and they smiled, shy but sure that the moment they had just shared was truly that—a Moment.

Edward stood. "Goodbye, Bella."

"Goodbye, Edward." As she echoed his words, she realized that her entire side of the conversation had been nothing more than an echo, her parroting back everything that he had said. But Edward hardly seemed to care; his eyes crinkled at the corners, warm and weightless with happiness.

Jake returned to the table just as Edward, with a grin as wide as Bella's, was departing. Bella's expression was pleased as punch. Jacob's expression was pleased as punch, too—as pleased as a punch to the face.

"What did Cullen want?" he asked, his hackles clearly raised.

"Uh, he wanted to ask me about the dance on Friday," Bella replied without looking at Jake. Her eyes were still following Edward, who turned and tossed her one last lingering, sweet smile before exiting the diner. With effort, she dragged her attention back to her table.

"Bella! I can't believe you're going to that dance with Cullen!" All the warmth had hissed out of his words, yet they were still heated, full of hot air. But Edward's attention had left Bella buoyant.

"Clearly, you weren't listening properly, Jake. I'm _not_ going to the dance with Edward. No dates allowed, remember?" Bella's voice was light and bouncing, hardly that of a girl who just _hadn't_ been asked to the dance. Jake rolled his eyes.

"Cullen is just...did you know he hangs out with the Clearwater twins?" Jake said, scoffing. Bella knew this, of course, but didn't understand how this detail was significant.

"So?"

"So, Seth and Leah are... well... Seth and Leah. We used to have this joke about them... did you know that they are part Iroquois?" Bella frowned. She didn't understand what their heritage had to do with anything. "Well, there's a story in Iroquois legend about a sky goddess who fell to Earth and became the symbol for fertility and 'female endeavors.'" Much to Bella's chagrin, Jake actually put up his fingers to air quote the words 'female endeavors.'

"Again, so? And what the hell are female endeavors?" Bella refused to air quote.

Jake shrugged. "_You_ are asking _me _what 'female endeavors' are?" Again with the air quotes. Bella slapped his hands down and rolled her eyes in acquiescence of the ridiculousness of her question. "Anyway, the story goes that the sky goddess had twins, one good and one evil. Can you see where I'm going with this? We used to joke that Seth was the good twin and Leah was the bad one."

Bella raised her eyebrow. "That's not much of a joke."

"We made it up when we were seven, Bella. Give us some credit for the historical basis at least. It's just, that theory always stuck because the Clearwater twins are so...I don't know, notably weird. Like, we know why Seth is weird—"

"Why?"

"We're not positive, but we're fairly sure Seth is gay."

"So what? That makes him weird?" Bella said archly. She didn't like Jake's judgments.

"No, but wearing all pink outfits in high school does," Jake retorted. Bella didn't bother arguing with him. She was a firm believer in letting everyone march to their own drummer, but apparently Jake wasn't so musically evolved. "And Leah? She was the biggest, bluntest bitch you could ever meet. But she used to be kind of normal. And then she met this guy in Seattle who became her boyfriend. Some weird guy... Andrew... Andrew Cludel, that was it. Anyway, he was from Scotland and he took her there one summer. They broke up while she was visiting, and she came back... strange. Like, I'll admit, she's always been pretty, but she came back _hot_. And slutty. But strange."

"Jake—"

"No seriously. Her conquests are legendary. I mean, I'm pretty sure that she has these powers of 'feminine endeavors,' whatever they are, because let's just say she's successful in all her…" Jake cleared his throat suggestively "…endeavors."

Bella's mind was racing. Had Leah and Edward hooked up? Knowing Edward's current behavior—which seemed to take a leaf out of Leah's book—they probably had. Was that before or after he had become this new, improved Edward? Was Leah somehow involved in his transformation? Bella was shaken out of her musings by Jake's stare. "Well, I'm fairly sure any halfway decent-looking teenage girl looking for, um, _endeavors_ would be fairly successful. Were you ever an endeavor she…" Bella cleared her throat suggestively "…_under_took?"

"What? No. _No_." Jake shuddered slightly. "But...you should have seen the guys she did hook up with. It was like they saw the world through new eyes. And vice versa—like they went in boys and came out...men."

"Went in where?" Bella asked stupidly. Jake gave her a leering grin. "Ugh, Jake. Don't answer that."

"There's this Quileute belief that boys go on a quest, a spiritual quest for transformation, and come back men. We joke that Leah _was _that quest for many guys. Like Sam Uley, for example. You know how he's all alpha dog, big man on reservation now? He used to be kind of an idiot. Not a loser but not so good with the ladies. Then he hooked up with Leah...and I don't know if it was a sexual awakening or voodoo magic, but all of a sudden, he was a _total_ player. He even hooked up with Leah's cousin after she left for college."

"Voodoo magic? Really, Jake?" Bella said, her outward skepticism betraying her inner reaction. Was Leah—with these powers that seemed, all of a sudden, like much more than a joke—the reason for Edward's mystic makeover? Had she subjected Edward to whatever change had befallen her in Scotland? And what exactly had happened to her in Scotland?

Jake shrugged. "Who even knows, Bella? To deny you believe it is to say you have proof of the opposite. Now, I'm not saying I believe them, but...who knows?" He punctuated his rather open-minded words with another shrug.

"Yeah," Bella said. In truth, she wanted to stop thinking about this, and changing the subject was a good, perhaps the only way, to do that. "How's the Rabbit coming along?"

Jake lit up, droning on about various parts and aspects of the car he was fixing up in his spare time. She listened the best she could, filtering out the technical terms so that she could grasp his meaning. "But anyway, it turns out that we were thinking that the carburetor wasn't working or that the sump was leaking or something incredibly difficult to fix—but it wasn't. We were looking at the most complicated parts when the answer was the simplest one—the ignition had a loose connection. We're going to fix it tomorrow, and then the Rabbit will be ready to go!"

"Jake, that's great! I know how long you've been working on this. Congrats," Bella replied genuinely.

Jake grinned and droned on a little more about the car before falling silent with a look that she knew quite well.

"Spit it out, Jake," she said, wryly.

"Uh… well, I'm just a little worried. I've been hearing stories about Cullen and well, he hooks up a _lot_—"

"Jake, I appreciate your concern, but I promise you, you don't have to worry about me. I'm smart, I'm not going to do anything I don't want to," Bella insisted.

Jake chuckled. "Are you sure about that?"

"Edward is my friend, you can't—"

"That's not what I meant," Jake said with his best sneaky face. "I hear costumes are mandatory?"

Although secretly glad that Jake hadn't wanted to dive back in to all things Edward, Bella still cringed. In further demonstration of their demented foolery, the FHS administration had stated that this "no-date dance" (called the Single Mingle) was also a mandatorily costumed affair. Still, because Forks had a lackluster night life, it was the only thing to do and, therefore, guaranteed a rather good turnout.

"Yes, they are."

"So what are you going to go as?" he asked.

Bella groaned. "I have no idea. I guess I have to get a costume now." If there was ever a time she was happy to know an artist as innovative as Alice, it was now. Alice's strength lay not in makeover and metamorphosis, but in tailoring—she would know how to find or create a costume that would be an extension of Bella rather than a radical reimagination.

"You could go as a nun," Jake suggested.

Bella made a face. "Yes, I do have a habit I've been dying to wear."

"Or something silly, like Little Bo Peep," he continued. Bella shot him a strange look. "Or one of her lambs!"

"A lamb? I don't even know what that costume would look like. And Little Bo Peep had, and lost, sheep. Mary had a little lamb," Bella replied, both bewildered and amused by his silliness. Jake spent the remainder of dinner throwing out equally ridiculous, equally unhelpful costume suggestions. But as they were parting ways, he betrayed his levity by giving Bella a tight, worried hug and whispering in her ear, "Be careful, Bells."

"Always am," she responded automatically. While she could understand Jake's worry, she was fairly sure there was nothing to be careful about.

Later that night, Bella was in her room bopping to some MJ as the song changed from _Bad_ to _Dangerous_. Just as her hand was poised over her phone to call Alice, she pondered Jake's words again. Could she really mock his words as ludicrous when she herself had suspected—no, had _tested_—Edward as an incubus just a few weeks ago?

Instead of dialing Alice's number, she pulled up her phone's web browser and began to look up the various traits that Jake said Leah possessed. But just as the page for Monstropedia loaded, she paused. Perhaps she now thought it was ludicrous because she had seen how very human Edward was. Behind his ethereal looks, he had scintillating smarts. Every stare of his golden eyes was matched in equal fervor by his passionate ideas and opinions. His sophisticated, stylish self was made even more ideal by a less than perfect, corny sense of humor. He was both the dream and the reality, the phenomenon and the ordinary, the myth and the man.

Beyond that he was the sweet boy who sat in her living room and humored her request to play Twenty Questions. He smiled at her with sincerity in his eyes and left her flowers that matched the color of her dress. Most of all, though, he was her date. And she was excited about it.

As _Dangerous_ shifted into _Smooth Criminal_, she determinedly closed the browser window and dialed Alice's number.

[-]

The season was closer to that of summer than winter, but still a chill ran through the air. The clouds were low and dense, viscous with rain. Lightning flashed, a stripe on the dark night sky, and its nemesis thunder answered, as if trying to set the tone for the monumental, stupendous event that was unfolding right in the sleepy, sloppy hamlet of Forks. And perhaps hamlet really was the right way to describe it—as it seemed everyone attending this apogee event had decided to ham it up.

Still, it was strange to see the motley parade of vampires, witches, princesses and rock stars trudging slowly from the parking lot of the high school to the gym, talking animatedly, dancing and sneaking swigs of alcohol (particularly strange when the Headless Horseman tipped back the bottle). Apparently, the mandatory costume rule had forced the guys to recycle their old Halloween costumes. More creative were the girls, who had covered the gamut from slutty Marilyn Monroe to slutty nurse to, in Lauren's case, slutty slut.

Bella stood in the corner of the gym, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot while alternately picking at and smoothing her dress. Edward had agreed to meet her at the dance approximately an hour after it started and was in full swing. Worried that the impending storm might have made it tough for her to drive, she had left home a little early and was now left waiting. She leaned against a bleacher and glanced around her, noticing two (slutty) ballerinas, a clown and a (perhaps unintentional) hooker—everyone who hadn't already been swept up by someone to the dance floor—idly doing the same shuffle as she, like rejects in a mixer scene straight out of _Grease_. She scanned the gym to see if by chance Edward had arrived already, but she knew that if he had, she would have noticed him. Everyone would have noticed him.

And everyone did. Almost like a timed entrance, a gust of wind wrenched open the double doors of the gym. There he was, bold, beautiful, brazen, framed in the doorway. As the lightning flashed, illuminating him like a white-hot demon on the prowl, his eyes roved for his victim. They landed on Bella. His "date."

Everyone in the suddenly still gym watched as he shed his overcoat to reveal his costume. It was simple yet sinful—a sleek cut, one-button suit in a prideful, gleaming black; an enviably crisp white shirt; a thin tie with matching pocket square in a deep, hungry, lusty red—the perfect canvas upon which all who laid eyes on him could draw their fantasies. He was pure prurience—to some, he was a tumble and tussle in black silk sheets; to others, he was strength and force, pounding, pulsing against a wall. Yet more saw defiance and dominance, warring wills and slapping skin, and others, pushing and pulling, tensing and trembling, restraint, then release.

Whatever the images they imagined, one thing was clear—Edward in a suit was sex incarnate.

Slowly, like ripples in a hormonal, lust-addled pond, everyone began to move and dance and breathe again. His bright, blinding smile in place, Edward approached Bella.

"Who are you supposed to be, Edward?" Bella asked as he drew near. Other than walking sex. Other than porn in person. Other than a mobile orgasm.

"Well, that's open to interpretation, I suppose," he said, silken chuckle weaving into the air. "I prefer to keep an air of mystery."

"So you're not actually going to tell me? You're just going to make me guess?"

"Well, only for you, Bella. Since you don't have a date to the dance…" he grinned at her mock scowl "…I'll wear my complete outfit." He reached into his pocket, pulled out a pair of black leather horns and clipped them in his hair.

"So you're the devil."

"That's the general consensus."

Bella matched his smirk. As he adjusted the clips, she decided that he had chosen the perfect costume—he was, most definitely, a horny devil. "No tail?"

"I decided to forgo that part of the costume." And Bella was glad. In the smooth material of those pants, unencumbered by pockets, she could see the perfect _C_ of his ass better than ever.

"No pitchfork?"

"Well, aren't you demanding?"

"I'm wearing glitter in my hair. The least you could do is carry a plastic pitchfork."

Edward laughed and took her hands in his before twisting them so his were on top. Then he motioned with his eyes for her to look down. But Bella couldn't concentrate on anything but the sensation of his hands on hers. His palms were incredibly warm—not hot, not sweaty—but uniformly warm, despite the fact that he wore no gloves and it was freezing outside. With the warmth came a gentle tingle, like the phantom feeling when a limb is beginning to fall asleep.

"Bella?"

She shook her head slightly and brought her attention back to him. He smelled deep and soothing, like a midnight tide, and he looked perfect, save for two tiny, angry red marks near his collarbone. She was about to ask what they were when Edward motioned again for her to look down at their hands. There, on each of his French cuffs, was a silver pitchfork cufflink. Bella failed to stifle her giggle.

"And the suit?" she asked. Edward grinned and released her hands, leaving her discomfited in the wake of the glory of his grin and emptiness in her palms.

"Well, rumor has it that the devil does wear Prada." Bella snickered. "By the way, we complement each other quite well." He was right; she wore a beautiful, knee-length white dress with sequined dolman sleeves that Alice had sewn to resemble wings, and her brown hair was tied in a high knot—she looked like the naive, nubile angel to his devious, delicious devil.

The twosome fell into an awkward silence, the kind where one has too much to say to the other and yet no feasible idea of how to say it.

Bella broke the silence first, attempting nonchalant indifference. "And here we are. I guess we'll see whether it's a waste of a night."

Edward made a dismissing noise and nudged her shoulder. "Oh B of little faith. You're here. I'm here. The night is young and so are we. The night is full of possibilities and, well…" He winked at her, and she smiled back. For once, Edward's bravado, his forwardness wasn't causing her to misstep—in fact, she felt light and easy on her feet.

They looked at each other, admiring again. "You look…beyond words, Bella." She ducked her head, blushing shyly as she thanked him. When she finally looked up to meet his eyes, she could not stop her smile from growing as wide as his. Edward's large grin easily gave away any cool he may have been playing with. He was clearly excited to be here, and Bella was relieved that he was so open in his demonstration of it. All week, she had been silent about the dance, merely nodding when people (all of whom, she noticed, were present) talked about how lame it was. But she had been looking forward to this night, the costumes, the company—to her, it was more oneiric than onerous.

As the music switched to a slow tune, they looked at each other expectantly, yet, upon making eye contact, quickly looked away as if shocked.

"B-bella?" Edward's voice, though quiet, carried straight from his lips to her ears, the slight tremor in his words forming a lump in her throat, the minute stutter creating a light flutter in her heart. She looked at him. "Will you dance with me?"

She was surprised to see that he was shyly, almost fearfully staring at the ground. Like he had done to her earlier, she nudged his shoulder and nodded when he looked up.

And so, slipping his hand into hers, Edward led Bella onto the dance floor and gently pulled her to him. They danced wordlessly and closely, taking tiny steps that were more a sweet sway, back and forth, back and forth. Edward held her close, their bodies delicately touching, his head tucked in next to hers, warm breath like a lover's caress on her ear, his solid heat gently embracing her.

Then, almost like a murmur, she heard his words. "'The beautiful things of the earth become more dear as they elude pursuit.'" He pulled away slightly to look at Bella and shrugged at her amused, questioning look. "Thomas Hardy. Once a literature nerd, always a literature nerd."

Gathering her courage, she spoke into his lapel. "I like it. It's…unexpected." She hadn't enough courage to look up past his chin or deal with silence as her words sunk in. "Anyway, Hardy, pursuit, you were saying..."

Edward chuckled and drew her in to his infectious warmth, his intoxicating scent, his irresistible self once more. "Well, I think Hardy was wrong." He fell silent suddenly and held her even closer. She could sense he had something to say but seemed, for the first time, to be holding back.

Ever so slightly, she turned her face so that she could breathe the air slipping, sliding off his slick, smooth skin. "Edward?" she prodded gently.

She heard him take a deep breath, felt it as the chest she was tucked into expanded. "Hardy was wrong because I'm finally holding you in my arms and you've never been more dear, more beautiful, more perfect to me than right now."

Bella's breath hitched. As Edward drew back slightly to look at her, she realized that this was it. Edward was finally declaring his feelings for her; she had finally won not only his attention but his romantic intentions. And Edward was about to do more than declare his feelings; he was about to show them.

Edward was leaning in.

Even as Bella was elated, she was deflated—for it was a pyrrhic victory. How could she be sure that this was not just another ploy, that she wasn't just another notch? And even if Edward did want to pursue something with her, to act on this attraction and connection that they both felt, how could she be sure what kind of boyfriend he would be? One with a wandering eye? Or worse—wandering mind, wandering hands, wandering anatomy?

Edward was leaning closer.

Oh E of little faithfulness. And suddenly, despite the delectable lack of distance between them, despite the almost hypnotic intensity in Edward's eyes, she couldn't stop the thoughts flooding her mind—the dam had broken and a sea of images poured forth, images of Rosalie, of Bree, of Renata and Didyme and Jane, of countless others. And while she knew that she liked Edward, she didn't know if she could accept him as this salacious, celebrated scapegrace. She didn't know what was going to happen between her and Edward, but she knew that they had to talk first.

Edward was closer still, and his lips had never looked so soft, so supple, so suckable.

She couldn't kiss him.

Could she?

No, she _definitely_ couldn't kiss him. Or could she?

She had to say something.

She had to say something now.

"Edward—"she began, her hand poised against his chest to halt his advance. But before she could speak, before she could splay her palm against that crisp, white shirt, all hell broke loose.

From somewhere behind them, the shouting began. Startled, Bella shifted to see that Mike and Tyler were shoving at each other, faces red.

"You said you'd come as a cowboy and I'd be Indian-a Jones!" Tyler yelled. "We agreed!"

"No, we agreed that _I'd_ be Harrison and _you'd_ be Clint!" Mike screamed back. "Now we just look like two idiots with unbuttoned khaki shirts! You ruined the theme!" Edward and Bella glanced at each other amusedly.

"Why aren't they enforcing the 'no date' rule for these two?" Edward murmured. Bella laughed and almost missed seeing Mike throw the first punch, which, while splitting Tyler's lip, also unfortunately knocked some nearby girl's punch glass. Before the liquid could mar Bella's white dress, Edward swiftly moved her out of the way. As a result, the drink coated his sleeve instead.

Edward swore under his breath, and they both looked down at his outstretched arm, then back up at each other. Edward's irritation at the mishap was clearly overshadowed by his reluctance to leave her. He delayed a bit as they watched Ms. Platt squirrel (literally, as she was dressed like a squirrel) away Tyler and his bleeding lip. Bella turned from the sight, not wanting to see the blood.

"You should get that cleaned up," she said, drawing Edward's stare away from Tyler. She didn't particularly want him to go, but the very nearness of him was heady and heated, making it hard for her to think—something she knew she needed to do in light of what had just (almost) happened between them.

Edward nodded and excused himself to go clean up, leaving in the same direction as Tyler, while Bella went to sit on the bleachers. She watched as a salt-shaker and Bettie Boop (Mr. Mason and Ms. Young) pulled Mike away to admonish him in the corner, effectively ending the hullabaloo. Everyone's attention returned to the dance floor and they began cheering loudly to the emerging strains of _Thriller_.

After a few minutes, Bella's gaze roamed and roved to see if she could glimpse Edward again, but he was nowhere in sight. She pulled out her phone to check the time—11:30pm. The dance would end soon, meaning she had precious little time left with Edward—and even less the longer it took him to clean up. She felt like she was caught been a rock and his handsome, hard body—on one hand, she couldn't deny her raging, smoldering attraction to him, to his mind, to that handsome face and of course, that hard body. He had made this school year the most interesting of her young life. He had made this dance not only bearable, but enjoyable. But on the other hand, she couldn't dismiss his actions. Even if he liked her, how could she forget what he had done to, for, with all those other girls?

Michael Jackson began crooning. 'It's close to midnight and something evil's lurking in the dark...'

As she fiddled with her phone to text Alice about her costume's rave reviews (and perhaps ask for advice about Edward), she accidentally opened the web browser. It pulled up the last page she had accessed but not read, which had been when she had briefly considered buying into Jake's ridiculous theories. She was about to check her email when—

_ Scotland._

The word caught her eye.

_ …with sightings reported primarily in Scotland, they are known to take on the appearance of beautiful women in order to seduce men and..._

She quickly scrolled up to see what exactly the article had been referring to. _Baobhan Sith_ _(pronounced baa'-van shee)_, she read, _are a Scottish demon or faerie, a mix between a vampire and succubus. They often appear in the disguise of a young girl, furthering her beauty in order to seduce men. They draw their strength from mating but sometimes drink the blood of a chosen victim. _

'They're out to get you, there's demons closing in on every side.'

Bella lowered her phone and realized she was breathing erratically. Words, conjectures, ludicrous notions swirled through her head, a mix of Jake's voice telling her that Leah had gone to Scotland and had come back strange, hot and slutty, combined with the _Thriller_ narrator's voice intoning that Baobhan Sith often invade young girls' bodies and...

Stop. She took a deep breath. This was ridiculous. Just because Jake had joked that Leah was the evil daughter of a goddess with the powers of "female endeavors" and had apparently come back changed from Scotland didn't mean Bella had to be a fool and buy into it. She had no relationship, no interaction with Leah for this bizarre connection, whether probably false or impossibly true, to matter to her. In fact, Leah's name only registered to her because she had spent the summer with...

'You close your eyes and hope that this is just imagination, girl.

But all the while, you hear the creature creeping up behind,

You're out of time!'

Almost beyond her own volition, she began reading again. _The Baobhan Sith become a type of sire to the victims, always male, who then develop similar habits. The victims often are or become extremely attractive so that they can appeal to females and become stronger through the "life force" they acquire through sexual intercourse. However, the victims are merely conduits—when they are strong enough, they will find a female who they will turn into a Baobhan Sith by mating with them and..._

Her eyes were drawn away from the screen against their will as she looked up to see Edward stride into the gym. His appearance wasn't like before—his jacket was unbuttoned, sleeves shoved up along his arm, tie loosened. His nostrils were flaring, and he looked disheveled… and hassled.

Michael warned, 'And no one's going to save you from the beast about to strike.'

She began skimming as fast as possible. _Because of the nature of their being, the victims of Baobhan Sith require a great amount of energy derived from sexual intercourse, as to become strong enough to create a new demon and then be released of their duty. The victims will often seek out a woman early on, one that they believe is strong and "special" enough to inherit the curse, then build up their strength. Right before they are ready to change a woman, they will often feed on human blood like a vampire to build up the stamina to conduct the changing process..._

Several things happened simultaneously that drew her attention from what she was reading. First, Edward called her name as he approached her. Then, just behind him, Tyler barreled through the gym toward Mike, and, launching himself at his former friend, punched Newton in the nose. Almost immediately, Mike's nose seemed to erupt into an angry volcano of blood…

_ Oh god, blood. And it really can't be true...even though Jake said Leah went to Scotland, and these... Baobhan whatevers are Scottish and...even if their victims become suddenly beautiful and have to have a lot of sex and...oh god, blood and...it can't be true, but if it's true, who is the—oh blood, there's blood—why were there two marks on Edward's throat? What if that's where Leah bit him and—how is Mike's nose still bleeding? There's so much blood and who is the person Edward wants to change?_

"Bella!" She could hear the concern in Edward's voice, but it was like she was hearing it underwater with cotton plugged in her ears. Between the blood—_oh god, the blood, it feels like my stomach is crawling up my esophagus—_and the Baobhan Sith—_what if Jake joked that Leah was a goddess but in reality she was a demon, and she and Edward—_and simultaneously bawdy, brooding gaze Edward was giving her, she felt consciousness rush in and out of her, like a tide crashing on the beach. What she didn't realize was that, like the tide, she too was swaying on her feet. But before she gave into gravity and fell, Edward scooped her up into his arms.

'Cause girl, I can thrill you more than a ghost would ever dare try.'

"Oh, Bella. You're not feeling well? Don't worry. Let's get out of here, and I'll make it okay." His voice was low and supposed to be soothing. He cradled her close to his body, and she thought she felt a pair of lips ghost over her forehead. "Let's get you away from Mike's blood, hm? It's okay. I've got you. You're mine. _I've got you._"

The last things Bella registered before she lost consciousness were three robust red drops on Edward's otherwise pristine white shirt.

_And though you fight to stay alive,_

_Your body starts to shiver._

_For no mere mortal can resist, _

_The evil of the thriller._

* * *

(Cue the Thriller laugh.)

As always, thank you for reading.


	9. Chapter 8: On

A/n: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended. However, I, under the penname listed above, do own this story, plot and its variations. I prefer it not to be plagiarized and thank you in advance.

This story wouldn't go anywhere without my wonderful beta quothme. Additionally thanks to all those who go above and beyond to rec, it is humbling and well, _awesome_.

* * *

**Chapter Eight**

Bella opened her eyes—or at least, she thought she did. She could see, but everything seemed to be blurred at the edges, as if she were looking through a foggy filter or someone had come in and photoshopped her vision. She didn't know exactly where she was, just a room that vaguely resembled ones in her high school. She was staring at the ceiling with shadows seemingly snatching at her, the darkness demanding her fear, the loneliness looming over as her only companion. Faintly in the distance, she could hear the DJ for the night announce the last song of the dance, and for a moment she felt a flicker of safety. She was still somewhere near the gym.

As she turned her head, she suddenly noticed Edward beside her, as if he had appeared from nowhere. He seemed more… ethereal, more unreal, more exquisite than usual, his golden glow bright. His eyes were arresting, holding her captive, sparking and sparkling. He wore no overt expression, blank save for his beauty. She dragged her eyes away from his to look at his too-perfect face and gulped audibly, though she couldn't place the detached dread she was feeling. It felt like she was swimming within her own mind, floating in a nebulous sea of thoughts, reason and rationality ebbing and flowing like a tide over her tired self.

"Oh, silly Bella." His voice was like quicksilver and quicksand, enticing and entrapping. "Every thing about me invites you in. My voice, my face, even my smell. As if you could fight me off." She couldn't understand the meaning of his words, and they lolled around her brain, bobbing above and under the surface of understanding until they finally sank away as he placed his hand on her cheek. The warm weight of his palm felt foreign, almost formless like he was somehow touching her yet not at the same time. In fact, the whole situation, from the way she was suddenly lying across a surface, softer almost than Edward's hand, to the way everything was obscured by darkness, was tinged with danger.

"Edward? What's happening?" She didn't know why she asked. As he lowered his face to hers, licking his lips longingly, she knew exactly what was happening. Yet everything felt like it was shrouded in a muddling haze of befuddlement.

"Let me show you, Bella," Edward was saying, words glossy and glassy, gliding through her. His mouth was millimeters from hers, yet she couldn't feel the force of his breath. "Let me show you what it's like." He slid his hand from her cheek to place his palm on her breastbone, apex of his index finger and thumb right at her throat.

Images were dancing in her mind. Not dancing—_writhing_ through her mind. Lewd and lascivious, bawdy and bold, images of hands and heat, pelvises and pulsing, fingers and fornication, tongues touching, thighs thrusting, phallus fu—

But she couldn't finish the libidinous line of thought because... because… _because_. Because luscious lips nipped at her loosely parted pair. Because it was only his mouth on hers, but it felt as if a thousand mouths were kissing her everywhere she could feel, like she was lying in a cloud of kisses. Because though his lips were lovely and loving, a feeling was going through her body, taut, trembling waves of want worming its way into her. A heavy wave of lust blanketed the room, a sultry air of sex slipped through her, incongruous to the soft seduction of the mouth making its way down her cheek, chin, neck. She didn't know what was perpetuating the raunchy, randy, wanton wanting in her, but she couldn't fight it, and she couldn't find it in herself to care.

A delirious haze settled over her, and she could feel a tug to something in the back of her mind, something that kept niggling her for attention. But everything was in a foggy fugue—except for the perfectly placed kisses up and down her collarbone, tickling, teasing, tasting, his tender, tremulous touch taking over all her thoughts.

It was like she was having an out-of-body experience, her surroundings darkening as though ink was seeping onto the page of her imagination. She felt strangely detached from her body and she realized she was speaking. "Edward."

He didn't respond, merely continued to provide her immeasurable pleasure with his calm, quiet kissing, lips locking around her earlobe, mouth maneuvering under her chin, teeth tracing the tendons of her neck—he was everywhere at once, yet nowhere, his touching ghosting over her.

"Edward." This time she tugged on the hair at the nape of his neck, pulling back so she could look at him. But she was shocked at what she saw: the golden-eyed god with the stunningly seductive smile whose gaze she had held a few minutes ago wasn't the boy whose hair she was holding. No, she was looking at a previous incarnation, thick lenses preventing her from probing him with her stare, stringy brown hair in place of the dashingly disheveled copper mane, and instead of that sultry smirk, a pusillanimous, rather pathetic pout. Bella was no longer seeing the man she mooned over; she was looking at the boy she had never truly seen. "Edward?"

He licked his lips and abruptly, unceremoniously, his expression turned devious, devilish, dangerous, and… dare she say it… demonic. "I used to be." And with a sudden sneer, he moved toward her and her sleepy stupor swiftly turned into a noxious nightmare, a depraved, debauched dream, a hellacious hallucination.

_Bang_!

A blood-curdling bang of thunder bellowed with a sudden, severe crack. Bella was shaken out of her subconscious as its reverberations roared through the building, shaking the foundations in its boots. But she was still hovering on the precipice between conscious and not, her mind not thinking lucidly yet but still ludicrously. Words swam through her consciousness, telling her that appearances were deceiving, that just as you couldn't judge a book by its cover, you couldn't judge its readers by _their _cover. Some part of her insisted that the simplest solution was often the correct one, and another part of her was swearing… _shit, shit_, it seemed to be saying. No, that's not right. It wasn't saying _shit, _it was saying… _Sith_. _Sith. Baobhan Sith_.

Still weak and woozy, she didn't bother to sit up but turned her head to look at her surroundings—she could see the darkened, empty hallway from her vantage point and realized she was in the faculty lounge inside the school. The whole situation seemed vaguely familiar, as if she had seen it before, but she couldn't recall the disorienting dream she'd just had. She shook her head slightly, trying to straighten her jumbled thoughts. How did she end up here? What had she been doing?

Slowly, she began to trace her steps. She was in her dress, makeshift angels' wings crumpled and crushed beneath her because she had gone to the dance. And at the dance, Mike and Tyler had gotten into a fight and Mike's nose had started bleeding and she had felt dizzy, but not just because of the blood. And somehow she had gotten from the gym to inside the school. She couldn't remember exactly, but if there was blood, it was a fair guess that she had fainted. Yet something else was nagging at her… something more than just blood had left her body in this seized, scared state. Why else had she been—

_Oh. God. _

_._

All of the evening's events—the dance, the website with the legend that so seamlessly fit in with Edward's sudden change, the fight between Mike and Tyler, the drops of blood on a white shirt—came rushing back to her, and she made a move to sit up just as lightning flashed and a figure darkened the doorway. Think of the devil and he doth appear. Complete with clip-on horns.

The impending storm stirred, thunder rife to rise, lightning set to shine. She could hear the pulsing bass of music playing from the gymnasium, and somewhere in the back of her mind, she transcribed the meaning of the song to her own situation: one way or another, he had found her and he was going to get her, get her, get still felt woozy, weakened, now even more from the realization that all this time, she had only been seeing half the picture. The information about Baobhan Sith, its corroboratory evidence against both Leah and Edward had drastic, dangerous implications. Edward wasn't just the snake charmer, making the ladies dance to his tune. His strength was the siren song he sang to seduce. But he was also the snake itself, the weapon, the venom.

Still, even with this knowledge, she couldn't deny how effective his signature brand of dark seduction was. He was even more disheveled than she remembered—his hair, which had been somewhat tamed and parted stylishly to one side, was now sticking up in places. He wasn't wearing his suit jacket anymore; his stark, white shirt clung to his shoulders, tracing down the delicious outline of his torso. The top few buttons were open, exposing his smooth, hard collarbones and an enticing smattering of chest hair.

Martial, mean lightning shined as he smiled when he saw her sit up and made to move toward her, damp handkerchief in one outstretched hand. Immediately, she shot up off the couch and away from him.

"Bella?" He said her name slowly, smoothly, like a song, and his voice only made her head feel more light. Was he doing this to her? Was there some sort of power he had that slowly cut off each sense until resistance, survival became futile?

She didn't even recognize her own voice or comprehend the words she was saying when they came out. "You stay away from me!" Thunder roared back in retaliation.

"Bella—" But she was nearing hysteria and couldn't be coddled.

"No! I don't know who you are or what she's done to you, but I'm not going to let you take me!" _No matter how much I might like it. _

"What? You know who I am, I'm—"

"You're sure as hell not Edward Cullen!" Bella tried to yell, but her words came out a hoarse, stuttered _sotto voce_. Edward took one lithe, liquid step forward, and she backed into a desk, causing a cacophony as it scraped against the floor. There was only one light on in the corner of the room, causing shadows to ghost all around, save for the split seconds when the lightning illuminated everything in a white, angry flash.

"I'm not Edward Cullen?" His voice was low and quiet, full of potential power, like the rev of a Ferrari. He took one step forward, eyes hooded, smile slightly twisted. He raised his hands as if trying to soothe a savage beast. "Please tell me, Bel-la," he split her name into two deliciously sinister, distinct syllables, "who am I?"

Bella clumsily backed up farther, knocking more desks and chairs, unable to look away from his magnetic gaze. "It's not who you are…it's, it's what you are," she sputtered with the heated fury of a hot air balloon. She couldn't stand still, her nervousness and fear seeping out of her in the way she wrung her hands and bit her lip. Edward's sizzling, scintillating gaze narrowed on her mouth.

"Alright then…_what_ am I?" Even as his brow furrowed, his eyes never left her lips. She swallowed audibly and visibly, trying to tamp down the mélange of emotions running through her. She was scared, yet she couldn't say that the twist in her stomach was completely from fear—did being damned have to be so delicious, take such a lovely form as lothario taking a step in her direction?

"I don't know what you are!" she accused, words making sense in her mind but not out loud. Edward arched a dark eyebrow. "But you're…. you're not… you're not…" She paused, struggling to find the right word. "…normal!" She said it with gusto and then deflated, realizing that the term was neither derogatory nor threatening—the two sentiments she'd been aiming for.

"I'm not normal? Well, I've certainly been called worse," he said, the amusement in his words almost melodic. The left side of his smirk tilted up, and Bella found herself wanting, desperately, to lick the apex where the corner of his lips joined.

"I meant, you can't be real… you're impossibly good-looking and smart. Your skin is pale and doesn't have so much as a birthmark on it except for—"

"Oh, I have a birthmark," he interrupted blithely, lissome fingers undoing yet another button of his shirt. He cocked his head to the side and pulled his collar, revealing an expanse of smooth skin from his neck to the edge of his shoulder, where a small, brown dot rested in the hollow of his collarbone. "See?"

Bella wanted to lick it. She wanted to dip her tongue into the incurvate area and lick and bite down on the bone around it and lick and drag her lips up that neck and lick and suck that earlobe and, oh god, she couldn't stop thinking of the word 'lick.' Lick those fingers and lick, lick, lick, lick—

Was this his power? That he infiltrated minds and placed ideas of actions so wanton, thoughts so downright dirty that they were impossible not to act on? He was doing it right now, to her, what he had done to the others with his bizarre skill, and she was falling hopelessly under his spell. As her eyes flicked away from his collarbone, they drank in what looked like drops of blood on his shirt and then darted to the two cuts high on his neck, just under his jaw… right near the jugular. Words began tumbling out of her in sheer desperation to keep her lips and tongue otherwise occupied. "Your eyes are the color of gold, which—who has _gold_ eyes? And you speak like, you sound like…" she sputtered, then whispered, "…_sex_." Edward chuckled.

"What exactly are you accusing me of, Bel-la?" he said, almost playfully. She even wanted to lick his voice. It really did sound like… sex. Edward's eyes flicked down to her chest before returning to meet her gaze. She realized she was breathing hard, panting almost, and all of a sudden, she felt out of control. She had to speak her piece—maybe if she let him know she knew what he was, she would actually be able to get away from (licking) him. He took a step toward her. "Say it, out loud."

Oh god. Oh god, oh god. For lack of anything else, her desperate tongue licked her own lips. She was going to be one of them. Another Cullen conquering, and she was going to look like them when he was done with her, with the wild hair and the glazed look and the giggles. God, those stupid giggles. And while the idea of being sired, of being turned into some sort of demon was accompanied by an incomprehensible amount of fear, she couldn't deny that there was some sort of excitement, an adrenaline rush, that accompanied it. Bella wondered why the idea of being taken by Edward was neither as terrifying nor as demeaning as she felt it should be. Maybe it was because there was an inherent compliment when a man who looked like that took notice of you. Maybe it was because she could finally know what all the fuss was about. Maybe, a part of her brain raged, this was all part of his power, that he could not only seduce you but could also make you like it. _Don't go down without a fight, Bella_, her internal voice asserted. _In fact, leave the going down to him_. She groaned inwardly. She couldn't control her monstrous libido—how was she going control the actual monster in front of her? Gathering her determination, she spoke.

"I don't know what you're doing to these girls, Edward, but it can't be normal. I mean, it's like they have no control over what they do around you, like they can't resist you, like you have some power over them. I saw Rosalie and Carmen and others after you were done with them. They looked different and acted strange and it's not… human" She said the words intensely fast but with a determination she hadn't felt before. She had told him. She had told him the most ludicrous idea she had ever had, but when she swallowed and met his eyes, she couldn't help but wonder whether it was a good idea to antagonize someone—something—she had just accused of being supernatural. "_You're_ not human."

Edward was no longer smirking. "You think I'm sort of a… sexual, debauched… boogeyman?" he asked. For the first time, there was doubt in his tone and what sounded like a hint of anger. And had he always been so tall? She used to find his height impressive and regal, but now as he looked down at her, his build felt too architectural, too powerful, like a dominating, eyesore skyscraper—and she was standing in his shadow.

"I read… I researched about... Baobhan Sith. And how they turn their victims into these weird versions of vampire incubi. Remember, you and I, we once talked about incubi before… before, uhhh, before you..." She trailed off, not knowing how to finish the sentence.

"Before I became one, you mean?"

"Are you admitting to it?" Her voice squeaked in incredulity. A tiny wrinkle appeared above his nose, between his eyebrows (Bella wanted to lick that, too), in the beginnings of a frown before he smoothed his expression into his default smolder. Lightning flashed once more, like a spark, causing shadows on his face that made him look menacing and malicious.

"You're… you're accusing me of being a demon that seduces women based on something we read on Wikipedia? That's what you think this whole thing is?" Edward looked somewhere between the realm of outraged and incredulous, brows furrowed, eyes flashing and mouth set in a straight, determined line. Oh god. She had just made the creature who wanted to bonk the hell _into_ her angry. _Not good, Bella_.

She could sense the waves of anger rolling off him. Maybe she shouldn't have told him she knew what he was. Maybe if she had pretended to be innocent, inane, ignorant, like all those other girls, he wouldn't have been looking at her with a stewing storm in his eyes to match the one outside. But his next words surprised her. "What made you think that?"

"I told you," she said nervously. She felt like she was walking along a trembling, tenuous tight rope and each word she spoke was only weighing her down more. It could be only a matter of minutes before the rope snapped. Why was he asking her this? Why was he prolonging the inevitable? Couldn't he just indicate whether she was blood-curdlingly, bone-chillingly correct about his intentions toward her?

But he didn't. Instead, he jutted his chin at her and said, with a cold detachment in his voice, "Tell me again, then. List the reasons."

"Well, there's all the girls that you've hooked up with—" Bella began.

"Aside from them. What are the reasons?" This time, his words were punctuated with an angry impatience. Maybe he was asking her this so he could prevent other people from finding out the way she had, so that he could protect his secret. But whatever the reason, she had no choice but to answer.

"Well, your eyes are golden—" she began again.

"No, they're amber. I used to wear glasses, but I wouldn't expect you to remember that. I wear these contact lenses that apparently enhance the color of your eyes."

"Oh. Well… um, there's always…" Suddenly, all the reasons, the solid, sure pieces of evidence she had that Edward was not human were slipping from her mind. "You have blood on your shirt."

"Yes, Newton got blood on me. That's your reason?" Edward asked archly. She'd never heard his tone like this—normally, it was molten, hot and flowing. It was still smooth now, but with an icy chill that caused a shiver in her veins.

"Your hands were really warm when you first walked into the gym, even though you didn't have gloves."

"Yes, most people become warm when they turn on the heating in their car. Usually."

"You have two cuts on your neck—as if someone… some_thing_ bit you."

"I cut myself shaving."

"Twice?"

"I was nervous."

"About what?"

"Going to the dance with you."

"Oh. Oh. Well, also, you… you…" She faltered. She was having trouble expressing her fragmented reasoning, but she knew what she thought. And so she rambled. "You disappear one summer and you come back like… like _this_! Completely different, completely irresistible and… and I know you spent the summer with Leah and Seth, and I know that Leah went to Scotland with Andrew Cludel and that when she came back, _she_ was different, and I read about BaobhanSith and how she was just like one—young, beautiful, seducing guys. And I know that Baobhan Sith choose a particular victim, who then turns into a male version of them and also is beautiful and seduces girls until he finds a particular one, who he thinks is strong and special enough to become a Baobhan Sith, and…" She paused for a minute before continuing. "And along with that note you left me about the Sadie Hawkins dance, I found a list of our topics from our project last year, and you had written 'incubi' down even though we only mentioned it briefly. And then I put it together because just after that, you left for Chicago and you met Leah… and…" Her voice dropped to a whisper. "…you became one, too."

"What are you talking about?" Edward's voice was sharp. "What note? And how… how do you know about Baobhan Sith? Have you been reading my book?"

"What book?"

"_Incubi and Other Legends_."

"What? No! I haven't read that book. What does it matter how I know? I just know! And I know your secret! So tell me, Edward, tell me. Now that you have me here, cornered, with no one else around, in an abandoned school like a scene out of _Scream_, what are you going to do with me?" Bella's question came out almost like a dry sob. She had managed, in her histrionic spiel, to work herself into hysterics and showed no signs of halting. "Are you going to have your way with me? Are you going to release yourself from this curse and selfishly make me like you, like Leah? Am I going to be the one having sex in the janitor's closet next year? Or threesomes in the—"

She was shocked as Edward clamped a hand over her mouth to stop her riotous rigmarole. She was even more stupefied when he let out a gust of a sigh, released her mouth and apologized for his action. He then led her bumbling and dumbfounded body to one of the couches.

"Sit down and calm down, Bella." His gaze was so strong, his instruction so authoritative, that she couldn't help but do as he said. "It's funny how you don't remember the rest of that conversation," he said, voice rolling and rumbling like the thunder beyond the horizon. "Let's take a trip down memory lane to that project you mentioned, where you pretty much flat-out rejected me. You claimed that you wanted a man who could satisfy you, a man who you _knew_ could attend to your 'needs.' I wasn't that man—you didn't even know me, but you made it clear that I wasn't that man. Fair enough. Let's fast forward a few months, to, oh, right around now, where I'm exactly what you asked for and you accuse me of being… what was it? Oh, that's right. A _demon_." This was a voice of Edward's she had never heard, hard with discontent, slick with rage, brittle under heavy emotion.

And then it dawned on her. In a montage of crazy conjectures and hysterical hypotheses, she realized that as a result of her asinine assumptions and downright dumb deductions, she had been wrong. "You mean… you're not a… and Leah's not a… Baobhan Sith?"

"Of course not!" he exploded, just as a flash of lightning hit. Underscoring his anger, thunder quickly followed. The rain pounded against the glass and Bella no longer felt unsafe, just very small. In the infinite imagination she possessed, she had woven an epic horror story—_Scream_,she had said. Really, it was just another high school tale—_Clueless_ would have been far more apt a choice for a title. "How could you think that, Bella?"

"I don't know, Edward. What was I supposed to think? You come back with the makeover of a lifetime, suddenly you're this glorious god of high school and hallways and I… in retrospect, it's stupid and ridiculous, but you have no idea what has been going through my mind these past few weeks."

"No, I don't," Edward said dryly. Bella bristled at the callous condescension in his tone.

"Well, explain it to me, then. How did you become… _you_?" Bella asked, unable to help the reverent, almost randy tone on the last word.

"It's a simple answer, Bella. You said it yourself. A makeover," Edward answered. "I did spend the summer with Leah. And Seth, her brother. When Seth heard that I was somewhat broken hearted over a girl who had rejected me, he got the brilliant idea of giving me a makeover. He thought that if this girl actually took a good look at me, she'd regret her decision. And so he made me someone worthy of being looked at."

Bella's voice had dropped out of her throat. Her heart, which had been beating furiously under the strain and stress of the situation, began slowing. Outside, the rain was abating, too—instead of pounding against the windows, fat drops were falling like tears, sounding hollow and empty on the glass.

"Seth… gave you a makeover? That's it?"

"What, you think this happened overnight? No, Bella. I worked out for hours every day, got lectured and yelled at by Leah, got harassed under the guise of a makeover by Seth. Hours of shopping and trying on clothes—which I hate—haircuts and eyebrow waxes—which I don't get how you girls stand for it—and wearing these contact lenses that make my eyes feel like sandpaper. You wouldn't believe the summer I had. It was more strenuous than actually being at school. I felt like I was in _Pygmalion_. Hell, I'm pretty sure I'm in some messed-up, bad modern remake of it. 'My Fair Eddie'." He snorted unceremoniously.

"How... how did you get so good at... _sex_?" Bella asked, almost fearfully, whispering the last word.

Edward smirked, looking like his old self for a moment. "I didn't say that all my working out was at the gym. I spent a lot of my time with Leah." Bella's gasp was croaky and slow. This wasn't a horror story—Leah hadn't infected Edward. No, this was like Edward had said, a fraught, falsified fairy-tale, an ugly duckling story gone awry. Whereas Bella had seen a frog, Leah had seen the prince inside.

"The truth is, I really liked Leah. She was one of the few people I met who didn't find happiness in hypocrisy. She was the most exciting person I had ever been around... and the second most lovely girl I had ever seen," he said, looking at Bella pointedly. "She saw that I was lonely and sad and was kind to me, which is more than I can say for anyone else. I have great affection for her. Surely this can't be the first time you've ever heard of friends with benefits? There were many, many benefits to my friendship with Leah, starting with her company."

"So she... taught you how to be charming? How to get girls?"

Edward scoffed. "In theory. The practice was… well, some of it was fun." He snickered to himself, accompanied by a silly, self-directed smile that made Bella think that a part of him really _had_ had fun. "But it wasn't just Leah. It was a triple effort. There was another member of the holy trinity, someone who taught me everything he knew about charm and swagger and being mysterious and what girls are attracted to, just by watching him. Jasper."

"Jasper?" Bella blanched. She thought back to last year when Jasper used to strut around the hallways of Fork High… _just like Edward did now_. She wanted to melt into the couch under her as she comprehended her stupidity.

"Yeah. He and Leah have been friends for years and he was visiting us for awhile. He was happy to share some of his wisdom, but the truth is, most of the stuff I learned from him, I just picked up by watching. I am an excellent people-watcher. Spent seventeen years doing it. But according to Jasper, who then told Seth, it was time for people to watch _me_." Edward shrugged nonchalantly, but there was forced casualness to his movement.

"I get it, Edward. You did all this so you could finally be seen."

"Oh, Bella," he said, wistfulness worming its way into his voice. "You _still_ don't get it. I don't care about being seen by anyone but you. I wanted you to see me, moreover, to see me as exactly what you wanted."

"Me? What I wanted? What did I want?" Bella asked, genuinely confused.

"What you said you wanted! A guy who girls talk about, who knows what he's doing, one whose girl will never be one of the 10%. I did this, I changed _for you_." She had never seen Edward so sad, so downcast. His golden eyes were no longer shining, but muted; the glow was gone. But they were wide and open and she realized that he was baring his all-too-human soul to her.

And suddenly Bella saw him clearly. He wasn't a demon, just a man, the absolute best and worst of a man. Wickedly winning, beyond beautiful, intensely intelligent yet still unreasonable, insensible, outrageous even. Such a man. "So you're saying that you slept with half the population of our town… _for me_?" She somehow managed to control her simmering anger into those last two syllables.

Unable to meet her eyes, Edward nodded, propelling the simmer to a dangerous rolling boil. Bella closed her eyes in a vain attempt to stave her irate incredulity. He truly was just a guy. How could she have been stupid as to think he was supernatural? For all his wit and smarts, he was just as stupid—slept with every girl and then _blamed it on her_! Her embarrassment and anger were fusing together and for the first time, despite an attraction that had not waned in the least, she wanted to do something else to him with her tongue. No licking, just lashing. Now, she didn't feel so lightheaded or helpless around Edward Cullen.

"And you thought that's what I would want? I would want someone about whom I could compare notes with _every girl I know_? You know how Edward and I went to Port Angeles? Oh, what's that, Irina? You and he once hooked up in his car in Port Angeles? So did we! Renata, tell me, where in the AV room did you and Edward have sex? On this desk or that one?" Bella's tone was pompous and her ire like Pompeii as it came to a boil and bubbled over the surface.

"Excuse me?" Though his tone was gentler, Edward was no less forceful. "This from the girl who told me that she would know how good a guy was by the fact that 'girls talk.'" He put up air quotes and, irritated, Bella slapped them down.

"This isn't what I meant when I said that, Edward!"

"No? What did you mean, Bella?" She moved her mouth a couple of times but couldn't formulate an answer. In reality, she hadn't really known what she was saying—she had said it because it was so the opposite of the old Edward that she knew it would dissuade him. But the idea of having a man who knew what he was doing was one thing; the reality was another, less attractive, thing.

Edward shook his head. "You suffer from grass-is-greener syndrome, Bella. As soon as you get what you asked for, you ask for what you had. You wanted your perfect man, one who knew what he was doing, how to be satisfying. You know how a guy goes from being a virgin to good in bed? Practice, plain and simple. With one girl, with many girls, whatever, but no guy is born knowing these things, Bella. Practice makes perfect. And you better believe I am damn close to perfect."

"Well, you've had enough practice," she muttered.

"See, there it is. You've got me, exactly what you asked for, but no, now you want someone shy and pure and devoted to you. I may not be shy anymore or pure but," his tone softened, "I am devoted to you, Bella, _I am_," he said, almost pleading. She didn't say anything, couldn't say anything, the sheer force of shock stunning her into silence.

"I don't know why you had to get my attention like this. By hooking up with every girl in the vicinity? There are other ways to get people to talk."

"I admit, it's not perfect, but it got your attention. And you're right; a good-looking guy who doesn't hook up with girls does get talked about. Girls talk about how he's probably gay. Which, by the way, is still much more preferable to being mistaken for a soulless, conscienceless _demon_."

She huffed. "I'm sorry about that, okay? I didn't mean to make you angry. Geez, you have a temper." She knew it was unfair and probably untrue, but she didn't like being accused of something that she couldn't defend herself against.

Edward closed his eyes and took a deep, calming breath, keeping the impending tempest threatening to erupt between them at bay. "I don't have a temper, Bella. I'm not perfect. I get angry and I have a right to. Just so it's been said explicitly—I'm human. I get angry, not often, but I do. And ever since I've become this new… me, I've fought all my instincts to be what you want because I want you _that_ much. I've dealt with girls seeing nothing of me except what they look at, treating me like I'm the second coming simply because I can get them coming a second time. All because _you_ told me you wanted a guy who was a sure thing. One who girls talked about. And now I'm some sort of monster that voodoos people against their will into sleeping with him."

"That's not… I didn't mean to imply that it was against anyone's will. God knows those girls were more than willing." She muttered her last sentence, almost as if she didn't want Edward to hear.

"But that's what you implied. Yet again you're saying things and you're not getting that someone is listening. I don't just hear what you say, Bella. I _listen_ to you. I told you before, I get you. But you're still not listening to me," he said quietly. The words hung in the air like the heavy rainclouds of the night, casting grey, dreary shadows. "I know I've made mistakes. But, 'what is life but a series of inspired follies?'"

"What?" Bella asked, bewildered.

"It's a quote from _Pygmalion_, actually."

"Why don't you stop using other people's words and just say what's on your mind for once, Edward?"

Edward's head jerked up to look at her. "Fine," he said, nostrils flaring slightly. "What's on my mind is that this is not a perfect situation. And that yes, I made some mistakes. But so have you, Bella. I really think you should just get past this; and I promise, I swear to you, Bella, that I'll never look at another girl again. Through all of this… fuckery—"

"Literally," Bella acerbically interrupted.

Edward nodded and accepted her comment. He placed his hand gently on top of hers. When he spoke again, his voice was a thoroughly trademark mix of strong, soft and sweet. "I've never lost sight of you, Bella. You're the only one I see. Why would I even need to look at another girl, if I had you?"

Their eyes met and perhaps for the first time, Bella _really_ looked at Edward. And in his eyes, she saw pictures of pretty promises and promising potential paths. But she had to look away. Maybe she hadn't seen him before, but now she couldn't look at him without thinking of all the girls who, despite his coercion to the contrary, may have looked and seen the same things. How many had been tossed aside, forgotten for the next, how many had even been given a first, let alone second thought in his dedicated decimation to get to her?

Sensing a shift in the mood, Edward sighed. He didn't know what words to say to convince her, what words could make her his, what words were the right words. So instead, he said the wrong ones. "Aren't you even a little glad that you have someone who is willing to do all this, just for you?"

"Just for me?" Bella thundered. The storm had ceased outside but now raged between the two of them, Edward's lightning-quick answers and crooked reasoning provoking her even more. "Yes, because you didn't enjoy it _at all_."

"I admit that it got a little… out of hand. But for the first time, Bella, people were seeing me. Maybe for the wrong reasons, but they looked at me. Noticed me. I wasn't an afterthought distracting them from what was over my shoulder. And I know, Rose—that really wasn't supposed to happen, but she was so sad and I still didn't even know if you had even noticed me. You still barely talked to me… I know it's not an excuse… if you could just push that aside…"

"Push that aside? Fine, I push Rosalie, one of my _best friends_, aside, but what about Victoria? What about Jane and Didyme? Or should I expect threesomes?"

"Like I said, I got carried away. But desperate times call for drastic measures. I wanted to be good enough for you, and then somewhere along the way, I began to be good enough for myself. I know, Bella, I know all the girls are a little hard to get past, but you have to believe me when I said, you're the only one who matters. You're the only one I'm real around, the only one I'm _me_ around." There was no mistaking it this time, Edward was pleading. His erstwhile irritation at her had melted and his golden eyes were no longer flashing, instead glinting with feverous vulnerability.

But Bella was still steaming. Timing _was_ everything—perhaps if she had known that this was what Edward was doing, if she wasn't so embarrassed of her foolish accusation and angry about his behavior, but moreover, his cock-eyed reasoning, she would have been able to forgive him. But now, even as he was confessing to her that she was the only one, she couldn't forget the fact that she _wasn't_ the only one—not by a long shot. And his pleading words of devotion to her were only further irking her ire.

"…only you, Bella," he was saying. "I only ever wanted to be good enough for you. To be the man who made you feel good, right from your very first time."

And in an almost fated, fatuous frenzy, Bella decided that she wanted Edward to feel the same disappointment that she did. And so she told him her deepest secret.

"If you wanted to be the man to make me feel good," she said, "right from the first time, you're a little late." His eyes widened and his jaw dropped as he comprehended her meaning. "I slept with Jasper at the end of last summer, before he went back to Chicago." And with that, she stood and left the room, not glancing back at the dumbfounded, devastated Edward she left in her wake.

* * *

As always, thank you for reading. Just the epilogue left now. Reviews, whether revolted, raging or redeeming, are more than welcome. I handle whatever it is you have to say (I think).

Oh and even though it's rather obvious: if, for some reason, you need to categorize and/or summarize this story, I ask that you list it as 'AU and/or AH' as to not give away the ending. Much appreciated.


	10. Epilogue: And On

I'm sorry I wasn't able to reply to reviews, I will get to them this time around, I swear. Speaking of: My god. The depth and passion in your reviews made me want to write a 100 more chapters... but I won't. Because not only must all good things come to an end, but it is so much better when good end(ing)s come to things.

Quothme edited _four_ full versions on the this epilogue before I went with this one. That alone deserves sainthood. Also thanks to twistedcoincidence for the multiple pre-reads.

* * *

**Epilogue**

When you're in high school, high school is all that matters. A few years later, high school is nothing but a time of hyperbole, hyperactivity and hyper libidos. Old grudges and memories fade, replaced with sweeping, caricatured characterizations for those who stood out most vividly—Rosalie, the beautiful bitch; Emmett, the winning, winsome quarterback; Renata, the foxy foreign student; Edward, the loner loser; Edward, the mysterious man whore. These monikers lose their meaning and simply become the way one is remembered. Judgment, curiosity, even care is no longer attached to these people you knew at a time when you were a less perfected, perhaps somewhat unrecognizable version of yourself. They no longer know who you are, they only know who you were, and the same vice versa.

You've moved on, and, therefore, you've let go.

It was in this state of mind, on no particularly significant morning, that Edward Cullen was in his neighborhood Starbucks, grabbing his morning coffee before heading into work, when he ran into a familiar brunette. It had been nearly ten years since Edward and Bella had graduated Forks High and more than ten years since they'd attended that dance, since she'd accused him of being a demon, since those fateful words about Jasper had passed between them. Bella, in a fit of uncharacteristic rage, had switched to a different biology class and had ignored him determinedly, refusing to speak to him even once they had graduated. Edward, true to his confession to Bella, had stopped his sedulous seduction and remained single for the rest of his high school days. His legend had never died, of course—in fact, he was still infamous in Forks, despite having left after graduation to attend college far away and never turning back.

Adult Edward was an incongruous mix of both the previous, pitifully lonely boy and the smooth, seductive, oversexed adolescent he had been. His looks hadn't changed too much—he was as striking as ever, catching the eye of every woman in his vicinity. He didn't use his charm as often, though, refraining from capturing their affection and attention. Unlike the erotic literature novel he had been before, he was now a pretty postcard—a few kind but sincere words and he was off, remembered more for the picture than anything else.

But it seemed that no matter where he went, how far away he stayed from the town of Forks, he could never completely escape his past. So when he ran into the girl who had nudged nascent, new feelings into his heart all those years ago, it was almost with a sense of foreshadowed finality.

As her initial shock at running into him wore off, she admired the man who had taken the place of the boy she once knew. He was beautiful as always, but rather than bold, he appeared beatific. A happiness radiated out of him, one that, despite all the confidence and company, had never been present in his younger self. They awkwardly exchanged "hellos" before beginning a conversation that was stilted yet candid, the type one has when trying to express genuine emotion to someone who is virtually a stranger.

"I just—I'll never forget you. You were... you confused me to no end." The confession poured out of her—for around him she couldn't help but alternate between the girl he had known and the woman she was now, back and forth, back and forth. In her nervousness, she reverted to a mannerism she had when she was younger—she twirled a lock of her chocolate-colored hair around her finger.

"I'm genuinely sorry," Edward said. His tone was honest and earnest, his words spoken with a full heart. "I really... I don't know what I was thinking back then. I was so... so desperate to be someone, to be something that… you, or really anybody, could want that I just... let it get out of control. I'm really sorry if I hurt you in any way—you'll never know how much. You were always special to me."

"You were special to me, too."

"Especially hurtful, perhaps." He sighed, a sad smile twisting his lips. "I just... I can say nothing that will make up for my behavior back then. Only that I'm not and never again will be _that_ guy, the one who needs to prove himself by using girls."

"It's okay, I guess. I mean, it was such a long time ago, and if you've changed..." she hedged, purposefully trailing off, hoping that he would jump in.

He didn't disappoint, his smile bright and boyish. "I have, I swear! I'm a one-woman man now... well, I would be. I'm single—but not mingling, I promise." His tone was proud and accomplished and more charming than any of his words had ever been.

"Really?"

"Really. Let's just say _something_ happened that gave me a reality check as to my motivations for my… er, actions." They exchanged a loaded glance, laden with unspoken questions.

"Really?" Her tone was inquiring, but it was clear from Edward's expression that he wasn't going to expound.

"Well, something was bound to at the rate I was going, wasn't it?" They both laughed.

"I'm not even going to pretend not to agree with that." He gave a mock grimace, but she could hear from the laughing lilt in his voice that he didn't mind in the least. His demeanor turned sober and, when he met her eyes, he did so with an intense, ingenuous genuineness. "I wish I hadn't been such an ass back then. You were the first girl I ever... I mean, there was a time when I thought I would have done anything for you. I did, in fact! After you and I stopped hanging out, I even talked to your dad!"

"You what?"

"Yeah. He didn't take it well. And then I asked him not to mention it to anyone. I've had a niggling fear of men of authority ever since," he admitted, barking out an embarrassed laugh.

"Wow, you really... you really did care." This was something she never knew about him, something she had never imagined. She thought that it was friendly affection, perhaps even puppy love, but she'd never realized until now how much his young heart must have cherished hers.

"I did. And I'm so, so sorry for everything that I may have..." He began to apologize again, but was cut off when she placed her slim hand on his arm.

"Edward, it's okay. We've all made mistakes, big and small." She tossed her chestnut brown hair over her shoulder and looked at him with those wide, innocent eyes he remembered so well. "It was so long ago. And you're okay, I'm definitely okay, too. I'm engaged." She let go of his arm and held her hand out to his face. The illuminating sparkle matched the incandescent one in her eye, both clearly declaring that this was a _very_ happy bride-to-be.

"Nice rock! That's great," he said, laughing. "Congratulations. May I ask who the lucky guy is?"

"He's actually from Clallam County—do you remember Jacob Black?"

"Yes, but not personally. He went to school on the res with some old friends."

She was about to speak when she was interrupted by her phone ringing. Quickly looked at the display, she turned back to him apologetically and said, "Oh Edward, I'm sorry, I have to take this."

"No problem. I've got to go to work anyway. It was nice to see you again," he said, sweet smile spread across his face. She returned it.

"It was nice to see you again, too." She answered the call, and he gathered up his coffee cup. As he turned to wave one last goodbye, he couldn't resist blowing a kiss and winking. She replied, brown eyes bright and smiling, by sticking her tongue out at him. Just like when they were young.

A bittersweet air mingled with the viscous, vibrant aroma of coffee beans wafting out of the store. It's not often one is confronted so singularly with their past, less often that they leave the interaction smiling. And even if the first cut is sometimes the deepest, time heals all wounds. Edward knew this—he had always been a fan of idioms.

-~#~-

That evening after work, Edward headed to a bar near his office at his co-worker Garrett's urging to meet him there. The encounter from this morning had left him disconcerted. It had been ten years since high school, ten years that he'd not been _that_ guy. But this morning's happenstance meeting had left him with a nagging nostalgia. Not to lapse into his Casanova behavior—no, his thoughts were bent on a brainy, beautiful brunette. Despite all they'd been through, all the mistakes they had inflicted and blamed on each other, he'd never quite gotten over the giving away of his nine-year-old heart and he'd never gotten over her. He'd tried dating with minimal success, often realizing that he was, despite his habits in high school, truly a one-woman man. And he'd chosen his woman as a boy. His Starbucks visit had only served to remind him everyone else had moved on, whereas only he seemingly had.

He sat and sipped his scotch on the rocks and texted his friend to ask his whereabouts. As he waited for an answer, he glanced around the bar to see if he saw anybody else he knew.

And he did.

He quickly turned back to his drink, obscuring his face with his hand as he comprehended what it meant. He hadn't seen her since they had graduated, and he hadn't talked to her in even longer. But that didn't mean he hadn't thought about her—in fact, quite the contrary.

And now she was here, sipping a martini, like the most beautiful girl in the world, which she'd always been to him, in the same bar that he frequented. Edward had always been one to ascribe meaning to everything—sometimes too much. But he couldn't believe that it was mere coincidence. It had to be fate that he would see another Forks resident—this particular Forks resident—after all these years, randomly, in a bar.

This morning, Carmen Weber in his frequented Starbucks. And now, Bella Swan, _the_ Bella Swan, _his_ Bella Swan, was sitting in his favorite bar.

It was fate.

And so he downed the rest of his nearly full drink, steeling himself with scotch. Squaring his shoulders and screwing up his courage, he stood and strolled, his gait betraying his nerves, over to Bella.

When she looked up from her martini glass, she was beyond shocked. This being the first time she had come to this bar, so far away from her normal haunts, she hadn't expect to see a familiar face.

Let alone perhaps the most handsome familiar face she had ever known.

As Edward and Bella's eyes met for the first time in ten years, as he prepared to exchange the first words between them in over that amount of time, something stopped him.

It wasn't nerves, though he felt a sort of paralyzing sense of weight in the moment. It wasn't disbelief, though he was having trouble fully comprehending the day's events. It wasn't even seeing her again, though he thought she may have been even more gorgeous as a woman than she had been pretty as a girl.

No, the thing that stopped him was Bella pitching her drink in his face and storming out of the bar.

Edward hadn't really known what he was going to say, but it turned out, he hadn't really needed to say anything at all.

Edward was still reeling from embarrassment and shock over the events the next day, even after confronting Garrett, who had admitted that he and his girlfriend Kate—who knew Bella—had figured out that they knew each other from the snatches of information Edward and Bella gave about their respective pasts. Garrett swore that it had been Kate's idea for the ambush at the bar, but Edward wasn't quite sure.

He wanted to be angrier at Garrett, but he just couldn't find it in himself. Perhaps because he had been lonely for so long in his earlier life, perhaps because he valued people over principles, Edward had never been able to hold a grudge, and that was no different now. He couldn't be mad at Garrett—no one, perhaps not even Bella herself, could have predicted how she would have reacted. Edward just wished it had gone a different way.

He had just managed to push the lingering feelings of regret out of his mind and concentrate on work when his phone rang.

"Edward Cullen speaking."

"Edward? It's… it's Bella. Swan. Bella Swan." He nearly dropped the phone.

"Um, hi Bella. What… what can I do for you?"

"Nothing. I just… I found out it was my friend Kate, who is dating Garrett—you work with him?—who decided it would be a good idea to have us meet."

"Yeah, I talked to Garrett—"

"Last night, I thought maybe you had… I don't know, set it up or something." Her voice was tentative but not meek.

"No—"

"Anyway, I'm calling to apologize. I got this number from Kate. I shouldn't have thrown a drink in your face. At least, not for that," she said, hurriedly pushing the words out of her mouth.

"Look, that's okay. But now that—"

"Bye, Edward."

And that was it. The dial tone cut him off before he could say goodbye and before he could even begin to hope. He hung up the phone in a bewildered daze, feeling that he had just been caught up in a drive-by tornado.

He stared at the phone, wondering for a second whether he had perhaps imagined the whole exchange. Everything else in his office was still and silent, and he was almost convinced that Bella had not called him when—

The phone rang again. He scrutinized the caller ID but didn't recognize the nine digits.

"Edward Cullen," he answered, using his standard work greeting, albeit with a tremble of tentativeness.

But this time, Bella didn't even bother with a greeting. "I take back my apology. You totally deserved that drink in your face. It was ten years too late, but—"

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me." Bella's tone was indignant and haughty.

"You called me to tell me that you're not sorry for embarrassing me in public?" He had still not gotten over his embarrassment from the incident and couldn't believe that Bella was being so acerbic to him.

"Umm… yeah."

"For something I did _ten_ years ago?"

"For the some _ones_ you did ten years ago and then claimed it was 'for me!'" Edward was livid at what he was hearing—Bella had called him back, just to reprimand him for his foolish teenage actions. Again! After she had so callously and stubbornly refused to forgive him back then, despite what amounted to groveling on his part.

Edward may still have been smitten with Bella, but he'd learned a lot about himself as he'd grown up and matured—he'd learned his own self worth, had owned up to his mistakes and didn't appreciate the condescension in Bella's voice.

"Oh yeah? Well, you weren't such a saint, either. How come it's okay for you to sleep with Jasper, who was basically as promiscuous as I was, but I get yelled at for it? _Ten years after the fact_!" Edward rarely showed his ire, but he had taken great pains to put his past behind him—he was no longer the same sinful, silly boy he had been.

"Well, at least he didn't sleep with my best friend! And then tell me he did it because he liked me!" Bella was clearly yelling. Edward wondered where she was that she had the freedom to raise her voice. He was in his office, so his anger was reduced to outraged hisses.

"Seriously? You don't talk to me in ten years, then you throw a drink in my face, then you call me _at_ _work_ to bring all this back up? Yes, I made mistakes, Bella, but you have a real problem with hypocrisy. I've wanted to talk to you, Bella, but not like this." Edward tried to take a deep, calming breath but found he was far too worked up to do so.

"Yeah?" Bella's tone was snotty and snide, like a bratty child who was angry she hadn't had the last word.

"Yes," Edward shot back. He had better things to do during his work day than be insulted and attacked, even if it was his beloved Bella who was doing so.

"Fine."

"Fine!"

"I don't even know why I called," she muttered.

"That makes two of us."

Still, despite his anger, Edward couldn't hang up until he heard Bella do so first. Sighing, he resigned that his reunion with Bella was as unsuccessful as their ill-fated date to the school dance all those years ago.

An hour later, Edward had managed to be the basic opposite of productive, still reeling from the argument he and Bella had. It was almost anachronistic, like these were words and anger and sentiments that should have been exchanged ten years ago. But they were a decade removed from that time and that place and the people they had been, and Edward felt that it was unfair for Bella to judge him now based on his actions then.

So when the phone rang again, he narrowed his eyes at it, almost like it was a living thing that had fought with him as opposed to the inanimate object that had connected him to the person who had fought with him. He glanced at the display and saw the same nine numbers as an hour before.

He inhaled deeply, steeled himself and then let out a gust of a breath as he picked up and, out of habit, answered with his standard greeting. "Edward Cullen."

"I'm sorry for yelling at you," a quiet voice informed him.

"Hi, Bella."

"Hi. And I… I'm also sorry for throwing the drink in your face. I'm not usually so… quick to anger," she said. The genuine apology in her tone combined with the regret melted away any of Edward's remaining ire. Now he was somewhat amused that after ten years of silence, she had called him three times in one hour.

"It's okay."

"Really?"

"Yeah. And I guess… maybe this is too late," he began. He took a deep breath before continuing. "But I'm sorry for what happened all those years ago, too. I was a stupid kid who thought he knew what he was doing."

"You don't have to apologize. Not now, Edward. Especially not now. I…I realize that I've been really unfair to you. You tried to apologize to me many years ago, and I never accepted it. I don't think I deserve it now," she said. He could just picture her, worrying at her bottom lip, shrugging in self-deprecation.

"Bella—" he began.

"And, you're right, it's not like I was perfectly behaved back then, either. I barely recognize the stupid, shallow teenage girl I used to be."

"I know what you mean," Edward said, nodding emphatically as if she could see him. "Like it was all one crazy, mixed up episode in an otherwise fairly normal life. Still, as much I wish I could, I can't change the past. So… sorry."

"Me, too. I'm sorry, too," Bella breathed.

"How about we take those at face value and put a moratorium on apologies?" Edward suggested. "We could spend hours playing the 'I'm sorrier' game."

Bella laughed, just a small one, but it incited a jolt of hope in Edward's animated heart. "That's true. And I'm very competitive."

"Well, we're a sorry story," Edward said. "Literally."

Bella groaned. "Ugh, at least I know that you still crack horrid puns. Other than that, how are you these days?"

"I'm good. You? When did you move here? After college?"

"No, just a couple months ago, actually. I took up a new position with ETS—the Educational Testing Service. What do you do?" Neither actively noticed nor ignored how easily they fell into an easy and amicable rapport.

"I'm in publishing, actually. I work at Simon & Schuster; I find and manage authors," Edward said. "I read for a living, and I really, really like it."

She snorted. "That figures. Once a literature nerd, always a literature nerd."

"Are you calling me names, Bella? You wound me," he quipped.

As they laughed and fell into the cadence of casual conversation, Edward realized that it felt as if a great, gaping hole in his soul was slowly being filled. Ten years of regrets and words had been expressed and, while it was a tragedy that it had taken them all this time to have an honest conversation, perhaps it had taken them so long for a reason. Perhaps neither had been ready until now.

So now, for the first time with no mysteries or missed intentions between them, Bella and Edward talked.

And Edward was pleased, but not extremely surprised, when Bella called him the next day and they talked.

And the day after that, during his lunch hour, he called her and they talked.

And the day after that one, and after that one and after that one, until without realizing it, their phone calls became part of their routine—like brushing teeth or eating a meal.

Bella worked from home, so it was easy for her to time her phone calls around Edward's schedule, usually calling him during his lunch hour. They talked about the things they had done in the past ten years; they talked about their mutual surprise that Carmen was marrying Jake and how Bella was going back to Forks in a few months for the wedding; they talked how much they loved living in a big city. And though they only talked about things that had happened after high school—in a sort of unspoken agreement—and they never attempted to communicate beyond their phone calls, they spoke every day for at least thirty minutes and spent the other hours of the day looking forward to speaking.

In general, despite avoiding questions from all his friends about what was going on with him and Bella, Edward was happy. Life was good, never better than when he and Bella were enthusiastically chatting away about everything ranging from the merit of literature nowadays and to the uselessness of reality television to Kanye West, the music and the man. But despite the gamut of topics they covered, they rarely spoke about their speckled past. And Edward was terrified of mentioning meeting up with Bella in fear of scaring her off.

Slowly, though, they began breaking down that wall that separated them unknowingly, brick by brick. First, they started texting each other when random amusing events would take place. Then they began exchanging emails, sending links to interesting articles or websites or stupid YouTube videos. Soon, they were immersed in every part of each other's life that they could be without actually seeing one another face to face.

But it still came as a shock the day Bella bulldozed down the last and most carefully erected of their barriers—the events that had transpired between the two of them in high school.

Edward had been making light conversation and had asked Bella, "Tell me something. Something that would surprise me."

Bella was silent for a few moments, which alerted Edward to the serious turn of the conversation but not the subject of it. "That summer, between sophomore and junior year of high school, the summer I sl-slept with Jasper," she stumbled over her words. She took a deep breath before continuing. "We had sort of a summer fling—it wasn't a one-night stand or anything. He…he had liked me for a long time but thought that I had no interest in him. I had thought the same thing, vice versa. It was nearly the end of summer and he was leaving Forks to go off to college, so neither of us had any grandiose illusions of a relationship, but we did kind of want to make up for lost time."

Edward was silent for a long moment as he listened, for the first time, to Bella explaining the startling revelation she had hurled in his face all those years ago. He sighed before saying, "I know all this, Bella. Jasper and I spoke about it—he explained it to me; and trust me, we both kicked ourselves a lot over it. You know we talked about it? We talked about the girl he liked and we talked about the girl I liked but the whole time, like idiots, we never actually mentioned your name. It was miscommunication at its worst—but it's okay. We're still friends, actually."

"You and Jasper?" Bella asked. Edward hummed his affirmation. "That's cool. I'm glad that didn't stand in the way of your friendship." Silently, Edward wished he and Bella could have acted similarly. "Actually, years later, I realized myself that Jasper had probably liked me for a long time."

"Oh yeah?" Edward asked. He was surprised that it didn't hurt as much as he thought it would to talk about this; yes, there was a tiny prick into his heart over the fact she was talking about Jasper this way and not him, but that was offset by the fact that she was talking to _him_ and not Jasper after all these years.

"Yeah. I actually found this note where he had asked me to ask him to the Sadie Hawkins dance our sophomore year," Bella said. Suddenly, events that occurred over a decade ago were once again fresh in her mind. "He never signed it, so I thought it was you who had written it, but then I figured out it was him."

"How'd you do that?"

"Uh, I may have matched the handwriting on the note to the handwriting from when he signed Rose's yearbook," Bella admitted sheepishly.

Edward cracked up. "Are you sure you belong with ETS? I think you could have an excellent career as a private detective.

"Yeah, well it still took me a few years to realize it wasn't from you," Bella said.

Edward was quiet for a few moments. And when he spoke, he suddenly turned serious. "It's amazing how different high school might have been if we could have all just said what we actually meant." What would have appeared as a non-sequitur to anyone else made perfect sense to them both.

They were silent for the minutes following that, reflecting on the veracity of Edward's words and contemplating the mistakes they had made in their adolescent idiocy.

Finally, Bella spoke, purposely pervading her statement with levity. "You know, if we hadn't put the kibosh on apologizing, I would say I was sorry for telling you about me and him the way I did."

"Well, if we hadn't put the 'kibosh', as you said, on apologies, I would probably _still_ be apologizing," Edward retorted, attempting to lighten the mood.

Bella laughed along with him and said, "Well, then it's a good thing we're not apologizing anymore."

And thus having broached and survived a conversation about their pasts, yet another barrier between them fell. But as the weeks and conversations continued, Edward began growing more and more frustrated—with himself. Despite things going swimmingly with Bella, he was still drowning in his own lingering insecurity—he feared that the minute he attempted to take his recovered relationship with Bella to the next level, and perhaps actually meet up face to face, she would shoot him down.

And so Edward found himself sitting in the park near his house on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, feeling irritated with himself. But aside from that, he couldn't help his jovial, joyous mood. As he settled himself onto a bench, he watched everyone around him, finding that they all shared in the warm, sunny joy that pervaded the air. Of course, this could have just been because he was on the phone with the girl who held his heart. She was outside, too, running errands at the farmer's market very close to where he was. Knowing her proximity to him, an invitation to meet halted itself at the tip of Edward's tongue more often than usual. But their conversation was like the day stretched out before them, giddy and whimsical, and he was enjoying himself and Bella too much to disrupt it. He couldn't force it. He knew he had to let Bella come to him.

"Tell me something about yourself, Edward." Bella's tone was playful and light, clearly indicating that she wasn't looking for any grand confessions like the one she had given when he had made the same request of her.

"What do you want to know?"

"I don't know. Something I wouldn't know about you." A lightning-fast montage of images of some of Edward's less than savory exploits few through his head. He was sure that wasn't what Bella had in mind. Seemingly having the same thought process as him, she added, "Something I wouldn't expect."

"Alright… let me think." He mulled over the events of his life, major and minor, and then remembered seeing Carmen a few weeks back. "Okay, when I was nine, my best friend in the world was Carmen Weber. Well, she was pretty much my only friend, and we used to play at the swings together, everyday." He laughed to himself as he remembered how much he had loved playing on those swings. "Anyway, she was packed off to boarding school by her dad. And after she left, I went to Reverend Weber's house and _begged_ him to bring her back."

"What?" Bella's tone was a mixture of incredulity, surprise and the emotion best expressed as 'awww.'

"Yeah. Begged him, wound up crying, told him I'd give him my baseball card collection, even told him I'd make my parents buy him a puppy," Edward admitted.

"What?" Bella sputtered and this time couldn't hold in her laugh.

"Well, I thought the puppy was a great bargaining chip. Who wouldn't want a puppy?" Edward asked. Then he answered his own question. "Reverend Weber, that's who. He was not impressed. I don't think he really liked me."

"What? I'm sure you were imagining that. What's there not to like about a nine-year-old?"

"Uh, plenty, when said nine-year-old is kissing your ten-year-old, I guess."

"_What_?"

"Yeah, Carmen was my first kiss," Edward admitted sheepishly. The conversation stumbled for a few awkward moments, and Edward was afraid he had opened his mouth intending to tell a story, but ending with putting his foot in it, until Bella spoke again a few wrenching moments later.

"That's really cute, actually. Little Edward trying to bribe the local minister," Bella said. She even punctuated her sentence with a laugh. Almost immediately, their rapport bounced back to its normal buoyancy, both their spirits soaring thanks to the day and each other.

But after a few more minutes of gentle conversation, Edward couldn't find a reason good enough not to attempt to take them out of this purgatory. Yes, they may still have had things they needed to talk about, issues they needed to address, and they could never change their less-than-perfect past, but hadn't they spent these past few weeks getting to a place where all that didn't matter anymore? What were the hours of conversation building up to, if not some sort of attempt to salvage the connection they had once had and so foolishly foiled?

Without even realizing it, words were tumbling from his mouth. "Bella… would you, I mean, do you, want, or like, or think…" He stopped and took a deep breath, shaking his head and willing himself not to lapse into the stuttering, scared boy he no longer was. "Bella, would you like to go out with me sometime?"

There was a long pause, in which Edward could have sworn he paradoxically felt his heart speed up and stop at the same time. Finally, after what felt like minutes but had probably been moments, Bella spoke. "Edward, just… just hold on, okay?" But countering her request, she hung up, leaving Edward shocked and saddened, still holding the phone to his ear.

Inexplicably, her warm voice spoke again, caressing his name with obvious affection in her tone. "Edward." The words sounded different; the static of the phone had melted away, and her tone was intimate and inviting. With a start, Edward looked up and realized why—Bella was standing a few feet away from him, a shy, sweet smile on her face.

"Bella!" he exclaimed, standing up from the bench. "You're here. In the park. In front of me," he stated, rather dumbly.

"Edward," she said gently. She had a strange look on her face, and he braced himself for rejection—this time, face to face. "You're still talking into the phone."

With a start, he realized that he was indeed still holding his cell phone to his ear. He lowered it, blushing furiously (and in Bella's mind, rather adorably) and muttered (even more endearingly) an embarrassed "whoops." But his question still hung in the air and in his eyes and Bella smiled as she answered.

"Yes, Edward," she said, fighting the nervous urge to look away from him but surrendering to the urge to ramble. "You are all I think of anymore. I barely go a minute without wanting to call you and tell you something random, something stupid or silly because you never make me feel random or stupid or silly. And it makes me so nervous, how much a part of my life you've become because I still have so many questions for you and about you and I have no idea where we stand now that I've admitted all that to you. But yes, more than anything, I do want to go on a date with you."

"Who, me?" Edward cringed at the idiocy of his reply, wishing he had been stunned dumb into silence, rather than dumb into stupidity. He was both elated and amazed that he caused the same feelings in Bella as she did in him.

"See, that's the real question, isn't it? Who are you? I've been trying to figure that out since I was seventeen, Edward. Are you the guy who walked through the halls of our school like he owned them? Or are you the guy who sat on my couch and watched Gossip Girl and talked about Dorian Gray with me?" she asked.

"I think they might be the same guy. I don't..." Edward confessed, trailing off. All he wanted to do was stare at the ground, his dormant diffidence surfacing once more. But he instead looked her in the eye as he continued. "I don't know who you want me to be, Bella. Even if I did, I don't think I could…" He trailed off. He didn't want to ruin his chance before he even got one, but at the same time, he didn't want to revisit the mistakes they had perpetuated as teens. For them to have any hope, Bella had to know, needed to realize that… "I'm just Edward."

"You are, aren't you? And you've always been just Edward," Bella said, talking more to herself than him. She let out a breathy laugh and said, "I guess what I mean is: if you are the strutting, smirking guy I used to know, then be that. If you're shy and still quote literature in every conversation, then be that. If you're a mix of those two, then be _that_. What I'm trying to say, without sounding like a bad self-help book, is just be yourself."

"I am, Bella. Forget about high school, okay? The guy you've been talking to for weeks? That's _me_, absolutely and entirely, for better or for worse," Edward replied sincerely.

"Then that's who I want," she said softly. Her eyes widened as she realized what she had admitted, and she quickly tacked on, "I mean, to get to know. I meant, oh god, I meant, that's…" She closed her eyes and shook her head at her own stupidity, blushing even more furiously when she looked up to see Edward grinning, teasing and pleased, at her. "That's who I want to get to know."

Before Edward could say anything, she sat down on the bench across from him, placing the bags she carried between them, avoiding his amused and infuriatingly self-satisfied smirk. "I thought that it was such a beautiful day out, we could just have a little picnic and eat in the park so I picked up some food. You ready for that date?" Having already, through her Freudian slip, declared her feelings for Edward, she figured the best chance either of them had to make this work was to keep saying what they were thinking—hidden agendas and secret intentions were things of the past.

But this time, it was Edward who was caught by surprise at her words. "Right now?" he asked, wincing as his voice broke on the second word. Bella chuckled and then her smile grew smaller, but her eyes were alight with a significant shine.

"Yeah," she said. "We've wasted enough time, don't you think? I'm pretty hungry." She shrugged, but it was insignificant against the weight of her words.

Edward looked at her for a long, lingering moment, drawing her eyes to his. For the first time, she realized that he was wearing glasses, but his gilded gaze was as bright, smoldering and yet sweet, as she remembered.

In a soft, low voice that was incendiary, inciting, enticing all at once, he said, "I'm hungry, too." And at the look in his eyes, a random thought—something Bella hadn't really concerned herself with in over a decade—popped into her head. With Edward, she wouldn't ever have to worry about being one of those 10%. Not at all.

She swallowed quickly, dragging her mind away from the depraved depths it was plunging into and kneeled down next to the bags she had brought. As she busied herself pulling out small containers of food, she listed what they held. "We've got some salad in this box. And we have hummus and pita here."

"Oh, then that's who I want!" Edward exclaimed. Bella's head jerked toward him. Then, mimicking her, in a playful tone laden with mock embarrassment, he continued, "I mean, that's _what_ I want. Oh god, I meant, that's what I want." He winked at her.

They were wearing matching goofy grins, besotted, bewitched, believing again in all the things their misunderstanding had ruined—in love, in attraction, in connection, perhaps even in the notion of soul mates. It had been ten years, save for their brief interlude at the bar, but in reality, it may have been the very first time that Edward and Bella actually _saw_ each other for what they were, rather than what the other thought they should be.

"Wait a minute," he said slowly, piecing the events together. "If you bought all this stuff while on the phone with me… that means you were planning this even before I asked you out."

Looking straight at him, she said, boldly, beatifically, "Like I said. I didn't feel like wasting any more time." And with that, she leaned over and kissed him. It was a simple kiss, just his bottom lip firmly ensconced between her upper and lower ones. It was a chaste kiss, as there were at least three feet and two carrier bags full of food between them. It was a soft kiss, and all he could feel besides her mouth, finally, _finally_ on his, were the tips of her index and middle fingers under his chin, gently holding his face to hers.

It was short but held the promise of prolonged kisses to come. It was sweet but hinted at potential passion to follow. Whatever it was, it was worth the wait.

Mere moments later, and far too early for either of them, Bella pulled away. She sat back onto her side of the bench and busied herself with setting up their meal, eyes on her task, except for the brief moments she would sneak up to look at him, her small, satisfied smile at odds with the blush stealing across her cheeks.

Edward wasn't even bothering to hide his grin, just gazing at her openly with all the adoration of a love-struck teen. To him, it was a little like the day that he and Bella had worked on that project all those years ago, except infinitely better. She had given him hope, a way to get to her, albeit this time far more honestly and realistically. It was, after all, a first date. They could realize that they were completely incompatible or that the infatuation they had shared in high school had been inflated with the passage of time. But Edward hadn't dated too much in the ten years since he'd last seen Bella, and he knew one thing: he'd adored the same girl since he was ten.

And now, right this minute, because she didn't want to waste any more time than he did, he was on a date with her. A first date, he attempted to remind himself, but he couldn't help but picture their future together. It wasn't going to be easy—Bella had made it clear that, intentionally or not, there would be a lot of obstacles due to his heinous and her hurtful high school mistakes. But he had long ago realized that he would do anything for Bella Swan.

So he would. And he would jump however high she asked, and he would woo her and win her over. He would love and cherish her. And he would do that by being just what she asked: himself.

She would find out all the things that made him _him_. That he preferred brunettes (really, he preferred Bella). That he liked disgustingly milky coffee and was considering moving to a bigger apartment because his current one didn't have enough room for his books. That he couldn't remain angry for an extended period of time and that he cracked really, really bad jokes (she may have already known this.) That despite an impressive vocabulary, he had never finished a crossword, that his favorite possessions were a 1891 first edition of _The Picture of Dorian Gray_ and a bowler hat he had stolen from her father's cruiser. That he looked at his promiscuous past with a cringing reminiscence rather than a macho pride; that despite his issues with them, he still called his parents every two weeks; and that he never wanted to go back to Forks again. She would find out that he had loved her since he was ten and that even now, before they embarked on their first date, he knew that she was, as always, the only one for him.

These were the thoughts—of loving and learning, of other halves and better halves, of having and holding—that were running through Edward's head as he accepted a box of food from her, letting his hand linger on hers intentionally longer than necessary. Silly Bella thought this was just a first date—she had no idea what Edward was thinking. What crazy, crazy things Edward was thinking.

-_fin-_

* * *

Just like a mullet- Business up front:

I am hosting a competition called the Superhero Contest. We've got amazing judges and a really fun theme. Check it out and considering participating here: /u/2379475/ I am contributing to Fandom Gives Back: One outtake from Legendary and one 4000+ word one shot. The content of these will be decided on by myself and the winner. Please consider participating.

I am working on a new story as well. If you are so inclined, put me on author alert. I should begin posting within the next two weeks. Also, if you haven't read them, outtake #1 sheds a little light on the j/b and outtake #2 on Edward's childhood and the reference to the bowler hat.

My blabbering, 'you're awesome' party, bringing up the back:

Thanks for sticking with me through this story; whether you liked or hated the last chapter, or this epilogue, it means a lot that you're here with me at the end. This fic would have gone nowhere if not for Quothme, my beta and cheerleader from even before the very first word. Additional thanks to everyone who reviews and the people who were so kind as to rec through blogs/comms/story chaps/twitter/etc. I can't name you all but please know I appreciate so very much.

I write for myself, but I post for you and you, wonderful readers, have gone beyond my wildest expectations. Thank you and I hope to see your familiar pennames around, whether on my other stories or just loafing around the fandom.


	11. FGB Outtake

This was the FGB outtake donated by the lovely members of Team Legendary. It's a fluffy/happy piece so if that's going to somehow ruin the story for you, don't read? No, I can't say that. Ask me (I'll be honest) or someone who has already read it.

Dear Team Legendary: I want to thank you ladies to very much for not only your support of the charity but giving me one last chance to come back to these characters and this story- I forgot how much I enjoyed them. Also, your suggestions and email responses were lovely and kind and I think that you are all just tops. Thanks also to quothme for one last round of betaing with this Edward/Bella- this entire story wouldn't have been possible without you, Q, and I couldn't have asked for more from the whole experience.

This outtake will be up on FF for awhile, but eventually I'm going to take it down simply because it's not _actually_ part of the story and I'm picky like that. It'll be up at ADF and on my LJ, along with all the other outtakes though.

* * *

**The Legend's Lady**

The first time Bella met Edward, it was in the back of her father's cruiser as they dropped him home. She wasn't too interested in the strange boy with the big eyes wearing a bowler hat, staring at her, though she was very pleased to see a copy of _To Kill a Mockingbird _in his lap. She and Charlie had just finished reading it—not that he read it to her, for Charles Swan wasn't that kind of father. But one day, he handed her the book and told Bella that she should read it, saying that it taught him about justice and was why he became a police officer. And she had devoured it, ingesting Scout, Dill and Jem's antics, feasting on the world through the view of someone close to her age, polishing off the book in under two days.

Her very favorite character was Boo Radley—the misunderstood recluse, who, despite a few mistakes and misdeeds, was merely a victim of his circumstance and upbringing. He had pure intentions and a heart of gold, not a heart of darkness as everyone in the town would have asserted.

"I just finished reading that," Bella said, but Edward merely stared. "I really liked it." Still he said nothing but continued his awed gawk. Bella tried one last time. "Who's your favorite character? Mine's Boo. But I won't call him that. His name is Arthur."

Atticus, Edward wanted to say. But I like Boo—I mean, Arthur—too. But his tongue was tied as, for the first time in his young life, he felt something akin to a fist squeeze his heart, squishing the breath and snatching the words out of him.

Bella was disappointed by Edward's lack of response. She liked playing with Alice and Angela but they hadn't read the book yet and her loquaciousness in regards to it wasn't so successful with a laconic Charlie. Hope had surged that maybe, despite his strange stare and odd attire—what was with that hat anyway?—she and Edward could have been friends and discussed the book.

But he remained silent and she stopped trying and eventually, they pulled up to the Cullen house. With a whispered word of 'thanks' to her father, Edward got out of the car.

That was the very first time Edward Cullen missed a chance with Bella Swan, seemingly setting the stage for a dramatic pattern that would characterize their relationship. Twenty years later, he would miss the chance to propose. But like the hairy, hirsute history between them, that, too, would work itself out in the end.

Though there was a portion of Edward's life that seemed more like a mystery or a horror novel, his story was in fact, more akin to a fairy tale. Yes, at one point, it was grim enough for Grimm, but those times were no more. He was in the days of Disney now, his happily ever after just around the corner. He was the ugly ducking who not only turned into a swan, but nabbed himself a lady Swan.

-0000-

Once upon a time, almost a year after Edward and Bella had reunited, Bella was rooting through his desk, looking for the small black box that contained paper clips when she found another smaller, squarer box. The type that contained a diamond ring.

She was so shocked that the soft click the box made as she opened startled her. Her hands were shaking, casting silver reflections all over the walls of Edward's study. And then, as she laid eyes on the brilliant stone, it hit her. In her hands was an engagement ring. A diamond ring. What was that saying? A diamond was forever. And it was fitting as so were she and Edward.

She quickly flipped the box closed and put it back where she had found it, immediately pulling her phone out of her pocket. First she called Kate and got her voicemail. Then she called Charlotte before remembering she was on a flight to London. Then she even considered calling Alice before realizing that because of the time difference, she would most definitely be disturbing her. So finally, she dialed a set of more familiar, familial numbers: her father's.

At first, Charlie Swan hadn't been particularly pleased that his daughter had ended up with Edward Cullen—whose exploits even the Chief had heard of. But he had slowly warmed up to the idea; he'd always had a soft spot for the Cullen boy, knowing how neglected he'd been in his childhood. While that didn't excuse his actions, it did endear Charlie to him, something that came in handy when he saw with his own eyes just how happy his daughter was.

"You… uh, you _want_ to marry him, right Bells?" Charlie asked after Bella finished spewing the story, hesitance halting his words.

"Well, yeah! Of course, I do. This just… it just caught me by surprise. I didn't think it would happen so soon," Bella replied.

"Yeah, well, I was expecting it a lot sooner," Charlie muttered. But as always, Bella ears picked up just what wasn't meant for them.

"What do you mean, Dad?"

"Uh, well. Edward may have called me."

"Edward called you," she repeated.

"To ask for you hand in marriage."

Her voice grew slightly louder. "To ask you for my hand in marriage."

"Four months ago."

"Four months ago!" Bella yelled incredulously. Her mind swirled with the knowledge that Edward had been planning—and by consequence, delaying—his proposal for four months.

Four months that her father had known he intended to ask. Four months that she hadn't known. Later on, when talking to Kate, Bella would rage a bit against this. While she appreciated the gesture, she didn't like that she wasn't the first—or at least, second—person to know about her own engagement. After all, this was her and Edward's future. It wasn't fair that Charlie knew first. If, or when she supposed, she and Edward were ready for children, she was hardly going to call his mother and ask permission for his sperm.

Kate had replied by jokingly begging her that she do.

But she could hardly say that to Charlie (she shuddered at the thought of ever saying the word 'sperm' to her father) and she was so overcome by surprise that immediately, her overactive mind began wondering what it was exactly that was keeping Edward from proposing, a concern she did voice out loud.

Charlie chuckled. "I can't tell you how nervous I was. There's nothing that makes a man feel less like a man than putting his heart in the hands of the woman he loves. That being said, I'm as surprised as you are, Bella, that he's taken this long. That boy looks like he could throw a party every time you smile at him," Charlie said, allowing a shade of condescension to color his tone. "But you know he loves you. And you know you love him. The rest will just fall into place—if you'll leave it be and let it."

It was the heartfelt fervency in Charlie's voice, normally a man of so few words, that gave Bella strength when her own insecurities made her weak. This strength helped her get through the next week where, to her disappointment, Edward did not propose. But she didn't like how she was reacting to this news. She wasn't even supposed to know that Edward was going to propose. And now knowledge she wasn't supposed to have was impeding the enjoyment of all the things she _did_ have with Edward.

Curiosity killed the cat, but it merely drove the Swan crazy.

It wasn't that things between them weren't good. They were hunky dory (Edward being the hunky, everything else the dory.) But Bella suddenly found herself with this burning yearning to make Edward hers. It had been twenty years of knowing each other, twenty years of mishaps and misapprehensions, and they had finally gotten past them. She was ready to spend the next two decades being so happy with him that it would make the misadventures of the first two insignificant. And she wanted it to start now.

Thing_s_ had always been unorthodox between them. To make her his, he'd made himself over. To bring himself to her attention, he'd bedded half their hometown. And to finally have her and hold her, he'd held off for ten tortuous years. Hell, she was in love with a man she'd once suspected—and accused—of being a sex demon!

Their story was not the usual one. And it may not even have been one of the great love stories of the world; but like them, it was anything but average. It was better, brilliant in its bizarreness, special in its stupidity, theirs in its entirety.

It gave them an honesty so many couples lacked, a freedom so many craved, a history that nothing could shake. Because the worst that could have happened between Edward and Bella—she thought he was the devil, he slept with her best friend, she slept with his best friend, they were separated for a decade—had already happened. They had survived their soap opera and emerged triumphant and, most importantly, together.

But even though she knew that one day, Edward would propose and she would say yes, she couldn't help but fixate on why he hadn't as of yet.

"Dad," Bella had said a week later, when Edward _still_ hadn't proposed. "I think I may have lost my mind."

It was easy to hear the smile in Charlie's words. "My advice is to do what you do when you lose anything. Retrace your steps."

And so she did. Bella remembered with startling sharpness the moment she'd spotted Edward standing in front of her at that bar, seeing him for the first time in ten years. Edward had neither dominated nor disappeared from her thoughts in that decade interim. He was remembered in diverse deifications—at times like the demon she once accused him of being, for commanding her curiosity and affecting her affection; at other times, with a fondness for the funny and fiercely handsome, ferocious fucker (both literally and figuratively) he was.

It was long buried grudge and newly resurrected attraction wound worryingly together that had triggered the tendons that tossed the drink in his face. It was her particularly well-honed 'fight, then flight' instinct—like so many years ago, after their confrontation following that dance—that had caused her to leave the bar before Edward could even pull the lemon twist out of his hair.

All she was thinking as she rushed home was that somehow, after more than a decade, Edward Cullen had reappeared in her life. She had no idea how he'd orchestrated it, how he'd found her, and how he'd dared. How dare he contact her after she'd made it so clear with her silence that she wanted nothing to do with him? Even if she had, on occasion, regretted her brash and bitchy decision to cut him unceremoniously out of her life, he didn't know that.

It was only when she relayed the story to Kate, who then had sheepishly relayed another story back to her, that she'd realized the full weight of what she'd done. She'd publicly embarrassed Edward for the wrong cause.

And the next day, with a mix of regret (the first call) and fury (the second call), apology (the third call) and undeniable attraction (every call thereafter), she and Edward had rebuilt everything they had so spectacularly demolished as adolescents.

And Bella was hesitant—this man she barely knew as a boy had come careening back into her life, with all the charm and warmth she'd known of him and none of the women. Suddenly, she was faced with the Edward that she had longed for as a girl—smart and kind, engaging and yes, shallow though it was, attractive, but without the harem she could harangue on.

There was no statute of limitation on bad choices. But there was also no use in judging someone's actions when they were no longer that person. Edward was guilty of many a sin, yes, but it would be Bella who would be indefensible were she unable to pardon him.

Edward had once called their high school years "one crazy, mixed up episode in an otherwise fairly normal life." She couldn't have agreed more. Except that talking—even if it was just talking over the phone with—Edward, perfectly imperfectly human, definitely not a demon Edward, was anything but normal. He made her feel far too much and she could never predict what she would do around him. When a girlish giggle would slip out, when a sighing swoon. When he would charm her inexplicably by saying he still split his Oreos and ate the cream first, when the low rumble of his laugh would set off something low in her.

And so she had waited for a sign. A sign saying "yes, go forth and be with Edward Cullen. Thou hast forgiven his slutty past." A sign saying "despite it all, Edward has changed, and he is the man for you." A sign saying "maybe you should have given him this chance ten years ago, but at least do it now." Until one day, while out shopping, she was on the phone with Edward as he narrated a story about his first kiss and a realization hit her: her waiting for a sign _was_ the sign.

She wanted Edward as he was. So she took him as her own.

And so started their courtship. It was much like newborn deer—shaky-legged, wide-eyed, in awe and absolutely adorable. Tentatively, they took each step in their relationship, until it was strong enough to not only stand on its own, but keep pace with their thundering hearts. Still, there were many bridges to cross; while emotionally, they jumped leaps and bounds together, physically, they held back.

Those days were dry and hard for Bella. Bambi it may have been, but all she was waiting for was for him to Thumper.

Edward was a lovely mix of confidence and coyness, of beauty and yes, pathetic puns. It was his unabashedly bad sense of humor, how unsmooth he was in some respects, that really charmed Bella. But perhaps being overly sensitive to how Bella might have felt about his past, when it came to physicality, Edward was the timid, teetering boy he'd been, nervous and nerdy, two things she adored, except when it impeded the progress of their pairing.

In fact, that first time they'd made love had been less fuck, more clusterfuck. She had expected anything but the nearly neophyte-like nerves he'd demonstrated. After all, this was Edward Cullen. Panties dropped at the mere mention of his name. Lubrication was rendered unnecessary by his low baritone voice. His sexcapades during that one year had been dubbed the New Big Bang theory.

But a bad case of stage fright had led to performance anxiety and his standing ovation had hardly lasted a few minutes—and had been nothing to cheer about. All the experience he'd accumulated had been rendered moot as he teetered and tottered around her tits and fumbled through their fornication. He'd been a one-minute egg and once he was done, he'd cracked.

Edward had been beside himself; for all it was worth, he couldn't have made it with the one girl who really counted, the one girl he wanted to make it with for the rest of his life. What good was he? He'd berated himself until Bella had brilliantly, bluntly suggested they try again.

And in keeping with his love of idioms, practice did indeed make perfect. She had lost count of how many pleasurable moments they had had, but she could remember with an almost lewd lucidity the first time Edward had showed her just how deserving he was of his legend. It was the first time they had sex outside of the bedroom—not even fully outside, in fact half in, half out as he pumped in, pumped out of her, legs around his waist, back against the doorjamb to her bedroom. They had been on the threshold, but Edward had pushed her over the edge—more than once, in fact.

And there was the time she'd been slightly sad because her father had informed her that he and Sue had split up.

"I just want him to be happy so badly," she'd said as she entered Edward's place. "Especially since I am."

He'd smiled at her reassuringly and said good-naturedly, "Well, you know what they say. When a door closes somewhere, a window opens somewhere else."

But Bella had been in one of her bratty moods, the kind Edward was just getting to know, where all she wanted to do was pick a fight. "That is just… dumb. Closed doors are stupid. Why can't doors be open and windows, too? I mean, it only promotes ventilation and circulation of fresh air into the house," she'd nonsensically ranted as she'd unzipped her boots in the foyer of his apartment.

"You seem to have a problem with closed doors, Bella," he'd joked.

She had turned her glare on him then, arguing for the sake of it, regardless of whether she made sense of not. "I suppose you don't have anything against closed doors."

But he did, as he stalked forward and pinned her with his hips, his arms trapping her as he rested his palms on the door she'd just shut. He lowly muttered in her ear, "Just you."

And then, Edward showed her just what closed doors could have opened against them—coats and zippers and clothing and condoms and legs, to be precise.

And that was when Bella truly saw how that summer of change followed by that season of being in charge, had molded Edward. How he took over not only her heart and soul, but her body, bedding her and breathing new life into all that had been so banal before. How his boyish beams could become salacious smirks, how gentle fingers that knotted in hers could become deadly deliverers of delights, how the slim hips she loved to wrap her arm around could pound and pulse and pump pleasure beyond her prayers. Their kisses were like kindling, all it took was one spark—which they had plenty between them—and they were set afire.

But the sex was merely the cherry on the sundae (and their Mondays and Tuesdays and Wednesdays and so on, so forth.) And Bella could only hope it would be icing on their wedding cake. Because she and Edward worked. Not because they were perfectly compatible, not because they were opposite and magnetic; no, with her and Edward, it was sheer devotion. Edward had always been steadfast in his convoluted courtship. But the more Bella got to know the boy under the bluster, the man under the mask, the more she realized that he was all she'd ever wanted.

A few months ago, a revelation had hit Bella with the force of a ton of bricks and the pleasurable sensation of a soft feather. They'd been at a party with some of their friends, milling and mingling. Despite the ardency of Edward's affection, he wasn't clingy, leaving her to separate conversations while he conducted his own. But every so often, he would sweep by Bella, lean in nonchalantly and whisper in her ear. The look on his face, the demeanor of his body, the ease of his approach would indicate that he may have been talking about something as casual as a grocery list. But his words were igniting, inciting, exciting.

One time it was just "your ass looks amazing in those jeans" as he strolled by. Another time, as he asked whether she'd like another drink, he placed his hand on her side, above the rib just below her breast, taunting propriety and teasing Bella. And the time after that, it was no words at all, just the tip of his nose barely touching the top of her ear as he hummed low in his throat, sending vibrations and goosebumps through her entire body.

This was a regular habit with Edward, a way of giving her space, yet reminding her just whom she wanted to be pressed up against. But more than that, it made her feel wanted and wanton, feminine yet feral. It made her feel like a woman. And that's when she realized she had figured out Edward's secret, what had made him irrepressible when they were teenagers, what made him irresistible now.

It wasn't that Edward was a philogynist. He was a philanthrope in that he loved people, craved them and cherished them. It may have been because of his childhood, it could have just been the man he was, but the best thing about Edward was that he was constantly reminding the people he loved what was so loveable about them, in authentic, often unseen way.

Like his monthly phone calls to Leah, which he was fastidious in making—they had not seen in each other in years and it usually degenerated into a long rant from Leah's end, but Edward would never let the first person who believed in him, the first person who saw him, ever feel invisible or unimportant. Or even the antiquated way he asked Charlie for her hand—showing the older man that he was respected and important, even if he wasn't present in their everyday life. It was especially apparent in the way he made Bella feel like she was the world to him every single day—not just at parties or in the bedroom.

With Edward, Bella could be any version of herself she wanted to be. If it was cute and playful, he'd play along. If it was angry and irritated, he'd humor her, melting her fiery ire with his warm smile. If she wanted to be lazy, he'd lie in bed with her, if she wanted to be adventurous, she'd get laid in other places. But what she could do most with Edward was just _be_. That roving, roaming spirit that had always been trapped inside her trapped inside that small town was free now, never too far from home as long as she was close to his arms.

But Bella had never been particularly patient. And she was surprised how unwilling she was to let time bide till she was a bride. So she began dropping hints. Useless, ambiguous hints that barely actually hinted at anything but to her, at least, they were something.

There was the week she wore white. White pants, white dresses, white shirts, she even wore white underwear to bed. She stopped the night Edward requested they go to his favorite Italian place for dinner and her spaghetti marinara proved a little too messy.

Then there was the following week where, feigning exhaustion, Bella requested over and over again that she and Edward stay in for a quiet movie night. He happily acquiesced, allowing her the choice in films. The first night it was _The Wedding Planner_. The next, _The Wedding Singer_. Then _The Wedding Date_, then _Four Weddings and A Funeral_ and finally _A Very Long Engagement_. Aside from grumbling over his dislike for the quality and genre of the films, Edward didn't say a thing about the theme.

Entering the fourth week of her knowing about the ring—meaning five months after Edward had asked her father for her hand—Bella had no idea what was keeping him. But she couldn't think about that at this point. Right now, she had a lunch date to keep. It seemed that Bella and Edward had an affinity for the afternoon. Of course, they spent their nights together, but since that afternoon in the park, since those lunchtime phone calls, they'd always had a love for when the sun was as high as their spirits.

As she spotted him in the distance, she couldn't keep the smile from lighting up her face and she bounded to him, barreling into his arms and branding his lips with her kisses heated from excitement. He returned in like, both of them having a conversation with their pecks and puckers that beat any "hello, how was your day?"

"Here's your pad thai," Edward said when they had finished catching up, handing her the take-out she'd requested.

"Thanks," Bella said, distractedly. She had far too much food for thought to actually have thoughts about her food.

"You want the peanuts?" Edward asked her.

"Do I want—what?" Bella asked, eyes growing wide.

Edward looked at her for a moment blankly, not understanding her shock before it dawned on him, his sunshine eyes glinting with his grin. "Pea-_nuts_," he said, purposely over-enunciating. "Do you want crushed peanuts on that?"

"Oh," Bella said, that Bella-berry blush coloring her cheeks. "No, no nuts."

"Aww, why not Bella? I thought you liked… nuts."

"You're going to lose yours if you continue this line of conversation," Bella threatened and he grinned. She leaned over to kiss him. "Thank you for picking up the food." Feeling particularly affectionate toward him for no particular reason, she kissed him on the closest place she could reach, his neck. It caused, to her absolute delight, a shiver to run through his body, despite the warm sun.

"You're welcome. Seriously. Few more seconds of that and you'll really have put the 'come' in 'welcome,'" Edward moaned more than said.

Bella pulled away from where her nose had been nudging at his sideburns, her lips tugging at his earlobe and cast an exasperated look at him. "It's amazing how your sense of humor has gotten so much dirtier, but no better."

"Oh, baby. My sense of humor isn't the only thing that's gotten dirtier," he cracked, waggling his eyebrows. She laughed back at him, shaking her head.

"Remind me again why I'm with you?" But he only grinned because he knew, as she knew, that there was no need to remind her. They continued their meal in a happy silence before Bella siddled into Edward's arm, enjoying the few minutes they had before he had to return to work.

"Your hair always smells good," he observed, humming low in the back of his throat, igniting flames in her belly and making her hot elsewhere. He spoke his words gently and seriously. "'I met a lady in the meads, Full beautiful, a faery's child, Her hair was long, her foot was light, And her eyes were wild.' It's Keats. Always reminded me of you."

Bella turned her head, kissing him on the cheek. Without pulling away, her lips still tracing against the light stubble on his face, she whispered a line she said to him often. "Once a literature nerd, always a literature nerd." He laughed and leaned in toward her hand, splayed across his other cheek. "Wait a minute. That's from _La Belle Dame Sans Merci_."

"Uh, yes, it is. You weren't supposed to know that," Edward hedged. She pulled away slightly so she could turn and face him.

"So you think of me as 'the beautiful lady without pity'?" Bella's tone was lightly threatening—she wasn't genuinely upset, but she always enjoyed toying with Edward just a bit, since he was playful and always a good sport.

"No, baby. I don't at all," he said, words just a little rushed. "If anything, I think of you as the beautiful woman with _tons_ of pity—enough pity to give a second chance to me, the boy who has loved you since—"

"You need new material, Cullen, that 'I've loved you since I was nine' line isn't going to work. It's totally overused."

"And yet so true," he said, grinning as he leaned in and kissed her soundly, his lips making vows of great love, his tongue promising to make it last a lifetime, his soft sigh telling her that he was hers and hers only. And it was that kiss, that one that said so much with no words at all, and the culmination of a month of waiting and wondering that caused Bella to blurt out her next words to even her own surprise.

"Edward, I want to marry you." Their eyes were mirror images: wide and surprised, her brown to his amber.

"You…" Edward trailed off. He pulled off his glasses, a signal Bella knew meant he was thinking hard. "You want to marry me."

It was too late for Bella to backtrack now. She knew this. But yet, she still tried. "I mean… if you want to marry me, I want to marry you."

"Bella…" Edward said, struggling to fight the smile straining at his lips. He knew his girl too well, knew something was up. But as always, he couldn't fathom what actually went on in that head of hers. It kept him guessing constantly.

"I mean, we're there, right? I love you, you love me, we know this, we've said it, marriage is just—" But converse to effect she had hoped for, her babbling just alerted Edward to the fact that there was something more she knew about.

"Bella… what's going on?"

"I found the ring."

"You found…" Edward paused as the meaning of her words sunk in. "You found the ring."

Bella grasped his hand and began winding her fingers through his as she continued to explain. "I was looking for some paper clips in your desk and I found it about a month ago. And then I talked to my dad, and he revealed that you had asked him about marrying me _months_ ago so…"

"So…"

"So, I've been dropping hints," Bella admitted, burying her face in his shoulder, thereby missing the amused, affectionate smile on his face before he schooled it away.

"You've been dropping hints?" he said, affecting a dimwitted, clueless tone.

"Well, yeah," Bella admitted, pulling away from his shoulder but still not looking at his face. She picked at the button on his shirt as she continued. "I wore white and I made you watch…" She trailed off as she finally glanced up at the roguish, rapscallion grin he was wearing. "Edward!"

"I'm sorry, Bella, but I mean—I knew something was up. I had no idea it was this… but it was too funny to stop," Edward admitted. He laughed as Bella swatted him playfully, burying her face in his neck, fingers finding his ticklish spots. His laughter gurgled out of him as he gasped, "Okay, okay, I'm sorry."

"I can't believe you knew this whole time!"

"I didn't! I mean, I thought Charlie may have spilled the beans, but I'm still a little too scared of your dad to call him out on it. But I know you, Bella. You forget that I get you, how you work. I knew sooner or later, you'd spill whatever crazy idea was in your head," Edward explained, nudging her with his chin. He pulled her even closer to him and kissed her forehead. "Turns out this idea was your craziest, best one yet."

Bella pulled her head from under his chin so fast she almost knocked his teeth out. "So… yeah?" she asked, hope blooming in her words, blossoming in her eyes.

Without her even saying it, he knew what she was asking. He was absolutely right—he got her through and through. And now he'd get her for the rest of his life. "Absolutely."

Her grin was uncontrollable as his. Even as the two kissed, their lips couldn't touch and taste and tease as they normally did because their smiles were too wide.

"See? All good things don't come to those who wait," Bella said proudly as they pulled apart.

Edward laughed at Bella forever trying to prove his beloved sayings wrong. "I waited for you. You came to me eventually."

"Yeah, but look at it this way. You had to wait nearly five months—and god knows how long more—for a proposal. I got mine in under a month," she said proudly.

"Technically, you're the one who proposed," Edward corrected her.

She grinned. "I kind of like that," she said, laughing.

"I _really_ like that," he replied. "It's very us—I keep waiting, hesitating, and you swoop right in and beat me to the chase."

"What do you mean 'that's very us'?"

"Well, you did that with our first kiss, too," he reminded her. Then he kissed her and as he pulled away, he said, "Not that I have any problem with that. "

"If I proposed, does it mean you're going to wear the ring?" Bella teased.

Edward laughed. "I hope not—my grandmother would roll over in her grave. It's her ring and since my mother didn't want it, it came to me as an heirloom. I don't think my hands are quite delicate enough for them."

"You know, I was so shocked when I found it that I didn't even get a look at it. And I didn't want to jinx anything so I didn't ever go back to peek at it," Bella confessed.

So he made sure that Bella got a good look at the ring when she came to his apartment later that night. She walked in the door to find Edward down on one knee, in his hand the ring that she had found all those weeks ago, on his face a smile that hadn't waned all day, and to her utter delight, on his head the bowler hat he'd snatched from her father's car the day they'd met.

And he told her that though he was sorry that he was using the same old line, the truth was he _had_ loved her since he was nine (hence the bowler hat) and that he'd love her till he was one hundred and nine and that he'd very much like to spend the rest of his life loving her not just as his, but as his wife.

His smile—that one where his eyes crinkled at the corners, and his gums showed just a little, that smile that wasn't his handsomest but certainly was his happiest— was replicated on her face when she said yes.

There were Don Juans before him and there had been Casanovas after him. And a little town in Washington and its members still had never found anyone to match Edward Cullen. But stripped down beneath all the layers of lascivious bravado and the swagger and the smirk, beyond the shady, slutty past and between the misguided, moronic attempts to win the girl of his dreams, he was a lovely, lonely little boy who had fallen in love and never looked back. And it was only when Bella had stopped viewing him as Edward Cullen and looked at him as just Edward that she could truly see him—the boy she had once thought was made of the stuff of nightmares had emerged the man of her dreams. He was just Edward, and he was what he always had been.

Hers.

-0000-

(And sure enough, they did live happily ever after.)

* * *

**_The End. _**


End file.
